


Learning to Live in Clover

by Muccamukk



Series: Tripartite Love [3]
Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Communication, Curtain Fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings Generally, Healing Sex, Id Fic, Miscommunication, Multi, Polyamory, Porn with Feelings, Post-War, Self-Doubt, This Is the WIP that Never Ends, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:48:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 66,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28761321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/pseuds/Muccamukk
Summary: Even now, with their arms wrapped around each other, it hardly seemed like this could be happening, not to someone like Bull.Or, deciding to get together is just the start of working things out.
Relationships: Johnny Martin/Bull Randleman, Johnny Martin/Pat Martin, Johnny Martin/Pat Martin/Bull Randleman, Pat Martin/Bull Randleman
Series: Tripartite Love [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108412
Comments: 26
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Normally I don't bother with much preamble, but this fic comes with a warning: it's not finished, and I don't know when or if it will be.
> 
> I didn't even mean to write a follow up to "Bread and His Name," but then I accidentally wrote eighty thousand words of it (so far), and enough people expressed interest in it that I thought I'd go ahead and start posting it, but it's rambling, self-indulgent idfic with no real plot or planned ending.
> 
> This fic contains: reference to past violence including queer bashing and war stuff, some disturbing dream imagery, societal homophobia, internalised homophobia, self esteem issues, poor boundaries, relationship conflicts and conflict resolution, and an unrealistic amount of sex.
> 
> This fic will never contain: Anyone dying, break ups, serious cliff hangers. It may never end, but I will not leave the readers in doubt that the protagonists will be okay.
> 
> For those curious, I've taken a few details from history, but the vast majority of Johnny, Pat and Bull's lives in this story are my own invention.
> 
> Our story picks up immediately after the porch scene, and before the epilogue of "Bread and His Name."
> 
> Updates on Thursdays for at least the next twelve weeks.

After Bull coaxed Johnny back inside they all stood around and stared at each other for a few moments before Pat sucked her teeth in annoyance and flew across the living room to wrap her arms around Johnny.

Bull watched their embrace and felt that old pull of longing, the one so deep inside him he couldn't name its source. Bull couldn't even name what he wanted, or more likely if he started to name things, the list would go on and on until he ran out of breath. Both Johnny and Pat had said he could have most of all of it, but Bull couldn't quite believe they meant it. It had been a day too full of anger and tears to believe much of anything.

He should go, give Johnny the space to finish patching things up with Pat, put their marriage right. When he turned to sulk back into his room—to unpack or finish packing he wasn't sure—his boot scuffed on the rug, and both Johnny and Pat's heads came up and looked at him with matching scowls. Bull froze where he was.

Johnny lifted his chin, and gestured with his eyes for Bull to come over, and when Bull hesitated, Pat rolled her eyes at him. When Bull was in arm's reach, Johnny caught him by the lapel and yanked him forward until they were all a tangle of arms wrapped around each other. Johnny pressed his face into Bull's shoulder, while Pat kissed the side of Johnny's face, and Bull held onto both of them best he could, and wondered how this was happening to him.

So many times in the past few weeks, Bull had been sure he'd lost everything, and he'd kept telling himself that he was going to have to grow up and learn to live without relying on anyone but himself. He'd almost convinced himself to do it: no family, no companions from the army, just the solace of being alive and memories of better times to carry him forward. He hadn't yet reconciled that to Pat telling him she wanted him, or Johnny saying that if Bull wanted, they could all three of them be together. Even now, with their arms wrapped around each other, it hardly seemed like this could be happening, not to someone like Bull.

Pat stopped kissing Johnny and stood on her toes to kiss Bull's cheek, then reached up and pulled his face around so that their mouths met. The kiss felt just as perfect as just as wrong as the one in the kitchen earlier. Bull whimpered into it, and he felt as much as heard Johnny's breath catch.

Johnny pulled away, twisting out of Bull's hold and stepped back, and Pat broke the kiss so that she could glare at him. "Hey," she snapped, and Johnny shook his head, looking pale. He'd asked that they keep it out of his sight for a while. Bull should have been better about that, but again Pat had kissed him, and every honourable thought he'd ever had had flown out of his head.

"Look," Johnny said, before Pat could tell him off or Bull could apologise, "I was thinking of seeing a picture."

"Sorry, what?" Pat demanded. Bull tried to step away, but she had a steely grip on his jacket, and Bull didn't think he could pry her loose without hurting her. "What did you say?"

Johnny folded his arms tight across his chest and didn't give an inch. "You heard me," he snapped, then sighed, his face twisting into a grimace. "I don't know, Patty, I'd just rather you two had some time to"—he left a blank over what Bull and Pat were meant to do—"and then it'd be done, and I could get on to getting used to it."

Bull shook his head. "That don't make a lick of sense."

"I couldn't agree more," Pat said, sounding like she too was on her last thread of patience. She clung a little tighter to Bull, and he slid his arm around her waist. Johnny narrowed his eyes as if to say that proved something, though what that might be Bull had no idea.

That was likely pretty clear on his face because Johnny shook his head and snapped, "Look, I know it don't make no sense, but it's how I feel about it. So if you could do me a favour and..."

When he still didn't fill in the blank, Pat did it for him, "Have sex in your bed, knowing your out there by yourself, lonely and miserable."

Johnny's curled twisted into a half smile-half grimace. "Yeah, pretty much."

"You could stay," Bull suggested tentatively. He'd been to a few of the kind of parties where fellows just went with whoever was to hand, and had a few ideas about how three people could occupy themselves.

But Johnny shook his head sharply. "I need to sort my head out, okay?"

"Johnny..." Pat started, sounding worried.

Bull was worried too. If they kept up like this, one of them was going to start crying again, and he didn't think he could take all that again. "All right," he said, "But you better know that none of this is going to change my mind. Pat's neither."

Johnny nodded slightly, eyes on Pat until she sighed reluctantly nodded as well, then he walked right back out of the house.

Bull was glad that Pat was still hanging onto him, because the sudden changes in mood were enough to make a man's head spin, and at least he had her standing solid and dependable at his side.

"Shit," Pat muttered.

"Yup," Bull agreed.

Pat let her head thud against the Bull's shoulder. "God he's stupid sometimes."

"Well," Bull said, not sure he was currently in the position to throw any stones in that regard, "you was the one that married him."

"Don't remind me." Pat stepped away from him, but kept her hold on his jacket. She tipped her head back to look him in the eye. "Could be because I was so in love with him I lost my darn mind."

That seemed like a good reason to Bull, but it brought back that twinge of guilt. They'd all said it was okay that this was happening, but somehow it'd wound up with Bull feeling like a Judas, Pat mad as a wet hen, and Johnny driven out of his own house. He'd call it the wages of sin, but he hadn't actually done anything to earn them this time around. He felt like he'd more than paid for everything he'd done in Michigan.

Every bit of that must have shown on his face, because Pat smiled sympathetically and pulled him down so she could kiss him again. "It'll be okay," she said. "Maybe he's right, maybe that'll be easier if he knows that us being together won't change that."

Bull had been wondering if that might be something they shouldn't test, that in the end it would be better for both Johnny and Pat if he just left, and let them sort out what they wanted, but if he was honest with himself, he knew he wasn't strong enough to leave. If he was going to do it, it would have been earlier that day before Johnny had ordered him to stay. Now that option had blown past, and Bull knew that he couldn't give up a chance to be with either of them, let alone both. He'd stay even if it meant just getting to be near them, not anything more, like he'd planned when he'd first let them talk him into sticking around.

"Come on," Pat whispered, her lips touching his earlobe, "let's go prove him wrong."

"All right," Bull said, and let her pull him into Johnny's bedroom.

Pat sat on the edge of the bed, so Bull sat next to her, not wanting to loom above her. She still had his hand in hers, but didn't look like she knew what to do next.

Bull took her hand and cradled it between both of his, and gazed at her for a moment. Her eyes were still a little red from crying, but still that beautiful chocolate brown he'd always found so striking, and her hair was starting to curl up out of its pins in a frizzy mess. She looked so strong and so determined, like a goddess stepping into battle.

"Johnny kept your picture," Bull said, thinking of the snap of her down by the river, wind blowing her hair into her face as she laughed at the photographer. "He weren't flashy about it like some of the guys, but he always carried it next to his heart. Showed me a couple times, and I said to myself, 'That Johnny, he's got himself a heck of a girl, and that's a fact.'"

Pat's cheeks heated, and she ducked her head, but just looked up at him through her eyelashes. "You're such a darn sweet talker," she said in a tone that very much suggested that he should keep going.

Bull did. He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder, rubbing lightly up and down, liking how her breath quickened at his touch. She was just wearing a light cotton blouse and skirt and was very warm. "It's just the truth," Bull said, leaning in a little. She tipped her face up like she wanted to be kissed, but it wasn't often that he felt words coming so easily, and he wanted to keep going. "That picture weren't nothing on the first time I saw you. I weren't in any kind of shape to notice much that night, but I saw you in that old nightie of yours, your breasts pressing against the cloth like they was trying to escape." He brushed his thumb down over the side of her breast, not quite touching the nipple, and smiled as she took a sharp breath. "Then the next morning, when you came out of the shower in your robe, and I saw those legs of yours, well, I thought to myself, 'Johnny sure is a lucky man.'" He moved a little closer on the bed, his knee bumping against hers.

"Did you want me back then?" she asked, a mixture of egging him on and real curiosity.

"Oh yeah," he whispered. "Knew I couldn't have you, but I sure did want you. Who wouldn't?"

She sucked her teeth and looked away for a moment. It pissed Bull off to think that there might be people who didn't see Pat Martin as the most desirable thing on earth, but that was their fault. He knew what was in front of him. He brought their joined hands up to his mouth and kissed the backs of Pat's fingers, holding his lips pressed to them as he looked past her knuckles to study her face. She was still flushed, but her dark eyes told him that it wasn't entirely out of embarrassment.

"I'd really like to kiss you all over," he told her, and when she nodded slightly, he took her collar in one hand and flipped the button loose with his thumbnail. It showed an inch of pale skin below her throat, and the button after that revealed her sternum. He stopped at the fourth button, the one that showed the line between her breasts and the edge of her light pink bra. By now, her chest was heaving as her breath quickened, and he could see the fast beat of her heart. Bull stopped undoing buttons and leaned in to kiss her lips.

Pat wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled their chests together so that now Bull could feel the flutter of her heartbeat against his own chest. He wanted to be skin to skin with her so badly, but he didn't want to ruin this by rushing things, and he didn't want to frighten or overwhelm her. Though from the hungry way she kissed him, that didn't seem like too big a risk. She kept running her hands through his hair, scratching at his scalp with her nails, tugging lightly even as her lips worked insistently against his. Bull groaned softly, and shifted to spread his legs as his cock pressed up against the inside of his trousers.

"You want me, huh?" she asked, lips still brushing his.

"Lemme show you how much," he said, and kissed the point of her chin, then her neck, then each place there had been a button before he'd undone them, ending with his face buried between her breasts, the edges of her bra catching in his stubble. Bull should have shaved for the lady, but it was too late now. He tugged at the pink cotton until one of her nipples popped free of the edge, then closed his lips around it. Pat pulled his head down against her chest, urging him on as her stockinged foot rubbed up and down his leg.

"Gentle," she said at the same time, "they're so sensitive, drives me nuts at work." She moaned as Bull licked across the nipple again. "Sit there in the office with my tits rubbing against my bra, thinking of how nice it'd be if you or Johnny were there to help me out."

"Or both of us," Bull said as he pulled her bra down on the other side.

"I hadn't thought that far," she admitted, then wasn't able to talk for a moment because Bull had slid his hand inside her bra, and was rubbing his rough palm over one breast while he licked the other. She kissed the top of his head, murmuring, "Oh, Lord, that's good."

Bull hummed at the praise. He hadn't known that she'd fantasised about him. He'd made himself not think about her or Johnny, brutally suppressed every stray notice of how much he wanted them, hadn't even let himself jerk off while he was under their roof. Now he had her breast in his mouth. It still didn't feel right if he let himself think about Johnny, so he pushed that aside and focused on the woman in front of him.

He pulled her blouse free, and tried to work out how her skirt was done up. He hadn't been with a woman in a while, and their clothes always seemed to be more complicated than they needed to be. This one sat high, above the swell of her belly, and had to have some kind of fastening, but running his hands around the waist band, he couldn't work out where it was. Pat was too distracted by his mouth on her breast to notice what he was trying to do, and eventually Bull gave up.

He slid off the bed to kneel on the floor by her feet, hands on her knees. Bull looked up at her, waiting for her response, but she only stared down at him with a dazed look. The dark tips of her nipples rose and fell with her panting breaths, rubbing against the edge of her bra. When Bull pushed at her knees, she turned so that she faced the edge of the bed and spread her legs wide, skirt stretching taut between them.

Bull took one of her ankles in his hand and gently massaged her foot, pushing his thumbs into the arch until her toes curled with pleasure, and she moaned. He glanced up, and she had her head thrown back, hair shaken free of its pins and falling behind her in a wave of dark curls. The nylon stocking made his grip slide over her skin, and Bull wanted them off. He wanted his jacket off too, and shrugged out of it, leaving it in a pile on the floor behind him, tossing his tie after it.

The skirt came down to Pat's calves, and Bull bunched it up out of the way as he felt up her legs until he found the clips of her garters. They were the button kind, so at least he could figure that out, but the pale expanse of her thighs was distracting him. With his face so close, he could smell the sharp musk of her arousal, and didn't want to wait or take his time. His cock was so hard, it was making it difficult to think straight, and Bull rested his forehead on her stomach for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut until he could pull himself together. Pat stroked his hair soothingly, then squeezed the back of his neck.

"Lie back for me now," he said and she obeyed. He wished he could stand up and see her, how her hair would fall around her head, her half-exposed breasts heaving as he breathed, but he stayed where he was and got back to unbuttoning her stockings and sliding them down her legs. He made sure to drag his palms down along with the slide of the nylon, and lay a trail of kisses after. Pat hummed in pleasure at the touch, and Bull flushed with pride. He wanted so badly to show her he could make her feel good. He rubbed his hands up and down her legs, massaging them lightly, finally letting himself touch her thighs like he'd wanted to since he'd gotten here. Her skin was so soft, a little stubble showing from not shaving that day. Bull licked along the inside of her thigh, and she tried to spread her legs wider, pulling her skirt up out of the way.

He undid her garter belt, and then contemplated the pale pink underwear, only a shade darker than her flushed skin. He wanted to rub his face against it, but the desire to see her without it won over. Pat lifted her butt a little to help him pull it down to her thighs. She laughed when she realised that Bull kneeling between her spread legs was not going to let her take them off entirely, and lifted her legs high and kicked the panties free before settling again spread out in front of him.

Thick black curls covered her cunt, but they were already gleaming from how wet she was. Finally, Bull leaned in and pressed his face against her. He licked at her entrance and tracing the circle of it with his tongue, the musky taste of her making him giddy. But Pat tensed at the contact, sucking a breath in and clenching her hands in his hair, and he waited there, wondering if she'd tell him to stop.

Her hands left his shoulders as Pat pushed herself up a little to look down at him. Bull lifted his head enough to see her face; Pat didn't look mad at him, but her expression was screwed up in confusion. Bull slumped a little. He should have asked. Some girls thought this kind of thing was filthy, and didn't like it.

"Whatcha doing down there?" Pat asked.

"Thought I'd lick you out," Bull said, "but if you don't want..."

Pat curled her legs possessively around his lower back, rubbing up and down his spine. She went over one of the lingering bruises, and Bull kept his face still so she couldn't see she'd hurt him. "I ain't never," she started, faltered, "I mean, with Johnny, he never..."

"Oh, I see." Bull still had his hands spread over her thighs. He'd known that Johnny had never been with anyone other than Pat, so he supposed it followed that the reverse was true. He hadn't quite figured on their repertoire being so limited, but where was someone supposed to learn about this if he married his childhood sweetheart? Johnny had never been one to stand for much in the way of filthy talk. "I think you might like it? You can holler if you want me to stop."

"Okay?" Pat still looked dubious, but flopped back onto the bed, and let Bull do as he would.

This time Bull approached more slowly, trailing kisses up the inside of thigh, pausing to suck lightly until he raised little purple marks on her skin. He knew he shouldn't mark her, but the way she kept making soft little gasps of pleasure every time he did made it hard to stop. Finally, Bull's nose brushed against her curls again. This time, he nuzzled between her folds, spreading them out with his nose and lips until he could drag his tongue up from her entrance over her clit in one long, slow stroke.

Pat shrieked in pleasure, her hands flying to his head, digging into his hair as she pushed his head down against her. Bull licked again, this time pointing his tongue as it crossed over her clit, and got the same response. He focused there, rubbing the tip of his tongue over her bud, and holding her thighs down as she tried to buck her hips up into his face. He lost her clit for a moment as she rocked under him, and licked over her until he found it again.

Every touch drew another moan or soft cry out of her, and he could feel her thighs trembling and flexing as the pleasure washed through her body. Bull wished he could watch Pat when she was like this, see how wild she'd looked as she let her body's needs carry her into abandon. Maybe someday, he would. For now, Bull let go of one thigh so that he could slide a finger inside her. He didn't go far, just circling her entrance like he had with his tongue, moving in time with his mouth on her clit, letting her moans tell him what she wanted.

Or, she just told him what she wanted flat out. "More like that," she gasped as he curled his finger inside her, so he added another. "Yeah, yeah, faster," she said, and he wrapped his lips around her clit, and sucked then rolled his tongue over it, then sucked again. She didn't seem to be able to say anything after that, but every breath turned into a cry of pleasure until her legs curled around his shoulders and her hands pulled his hair hard enough to make his eyes water, and she came.

Pat slumped back on the bed, panting like she'd just run Currahee for the first time, and Bull knelt up so that he could lift her legs onto the bed. He smoothed her skirt down over her legs, covering her up, but Pat grunted in annoyance and fumbled at the waist band until she'd undone a delicate little zipper. Bull pulled the skirt off for her, and wiped his face clean on a tissue before crawling up onto the bed beside her.

Desire throbbed through his whole body, starting at his aching cock, and spreading out through him with every heartbeat, but Pat looked so contented lying there in just her bra, her hair completely out of its pins and spread on the pillow around her face in a riot of dark curls. Pat sat up enough to unhook her bra and tossed it off the bed too, then slumped down in naked satisfaction.

"Okay, so, I like that," she said when she'd settled down enough to talk. "Gotta tell Johnny about it."

With anyone else, Bull would have worried that she might find a partner unwilling to oblige, but he couldn't think there was a single thing on Earth that Johnny wouldn't do for Pat, once asked.

Goosebumps were starting to spread across the skin of her arms, so Bull leaned over her to kiss her again, blanketing her with his own body. He winced as she gripped his upper arm right on top of a bruise, the pain coming so sharp and unexpectedly that he didn't have time to still it.

Pat cooed in sympathy and contrition, planting kisses all over his face and starting to unbutton his shirt. "Let's get you out of this, huh? I wanna have you naked when you're inside me."

"All right," Bull said, but he rolled off the bed and stood instead of letting her undress him. "How 'bout you get under them covers, and I'll get in with you?"

He'd meant for her to busy herself with the bed long enough for him to quickly strip, but she just grabbed the edge of the blankets, rolled over with them, then rolled back into the empty bed, propping her hand on her head to watch him. At that point, there wasn't much for it but to just strip and let her think what she would. Bull didn't want to make anything of it, and just pulled his shirt and under shirt off over his head, before bending to unlace his boots. He knew that while the shiner he'd sported coming in had faded, and you couldn't really see the cut through his eyebrow any more, the larger deeper bruises on his back and sides were still a rainbow of ugliness. He was glad he couldn't see her face when she made a small pained sound.

Bull gritted his teeth and yanked his laces loose. He kicked off his boots, and got his pants and underwear off without looking her in the eye. The humiliation of it all blazed through him, and knew he must be flushed scarlet from it. He kept his head down, sensing more than feeling her pulling the covers back and making room for him in the bed.

At least Pat didn't say anything, just cuddled up to his chest and let him put her arms around her. Bull buried his face in her hair and let himself breathe in the mixed scents of shampoo, a trace of perfume, and cooling perspiration, while he rubbed her hands up and down her back. It did feel good to have their bare skin rubbing against each other. Her breasts were soft and warm against his chest, and she was running the arch of her foot up and down her shins. His cock brushed against the bottom of her full stomach, and Bull thought about maybe just rubbing himself off against her, but she might find that humiliating, and she had said she wanted him inside her. The thought of that was enough to pull Bull back to the here and now.

He put his hand on her stomach, and asked, "I can't hurt you none, can I?"

Pat shook her head. "No, it's okay. Just go slow, huh?"

Bull didn't push her on to her back right away, but cradled her face in his hands and kissed her for a while first. He wanted to lose himself in her, this beautiful, generous woman, who by some miracle wanted him enough to risk everything in a kiss. The need to feel more raced through his blood, but he let it, luxuriating in the anticipation of soon-to-be-sated lust, how it heated his blood and made the rest of the world fall away as it carried him along.

It was Pat who finally broke the kiss and rolled over, lying on her back with her legs open and ready for him. They'd built up a little cocoon of warm under the covers, and Bull felt almost as though he were floating as he rolled over on top of her. He reached between them to guide his cock to her entrance, and found her hand already there. She closed her fingers around his shaft, and Bull almost wanted to let her stroke him off. But then she lined up the tip of his dick with her cunt, and lifted her hips a little, and he was inside her.

Bull grunted and focused on pulling in one breath after another. She was a little too tight, the grip of her passage shocking around his dick, and he had to lock his elbows and hold himself perfectly still to keep from using his weight to thrust all the way into her. He watched her face carefully, but Pat didn't look distressed or in pain. Still, he held himself just at her entrance, and reached between them to rub his thumb over her clit.

"Oh, yeah," she moaned, and pushed her hips up against him, taking his cock in a little further. "Keep doing that."

Bull did as he was told, toying with her clit as he rocked deeper and deeper into her, until their stomachs brushed. Then she tilted her hips back and wrapped her legs around his thighs, and their bodies met completely.

"There we are," she said, looking pleased with herself. "Next time, I wanna pin you down and ride you silly."

Bull's impression of the limited scope of Pat and Johnny's sex life expanded a little, but now wasn't the time to imagine Pat sitting astride Johnny, keeping his shoulders pinned to the bed as she bounced up and down on his cock, her hair wild and her breasts swaying as he tried to catch them in his mouth. It wasn't the time to think of the promise wrapped up in "next time," either. Bull turned back to kissing her, hoping to distract himself, but the way she writhed under him every time he rolled the pad of his thumb over her clit made distraction impossible. She felt too good around him, slick and hot in exactly the right ways, and her moans of pleasure as he rocked into her only drove him on.

Soon, they were crying out against each other as Bull thrust into her, and she dug her heels into the backs of his thighs and tried to keep their bodies pulled close together. Her hand joined his between their bodies, playing with herself as his co-ordination started to falter. She came by rubbing herself off, her chest pushing up against his as his head thrashed back and forth, and she clung to him. Bull had been trying to hold onto her hip to steady himself, but his hand slipped off against her slick skin, and he drove into her clenching shuddering body harder than he'd meant to. The extra pressure pulled him along with her, and he collapsed on top of her as he came.

Pat squawked in protest, and Bull instinctively rolled onto his side to get off of her. They lay facing each other, their bodies still lightly joined, both shaking from the release. Bull kissed her face, vaguely aiming for her mouth, but kissing every scrap of skin he could find until he got there. Pat laughed and stroked up and down his arm before reaching behind her for a handful of tissues to tidy up as he pulled out.

Then it was over, and Bull wasn't sure what to do next. There was the kind of roll in the hay who wanted you to roll right out of bed when you were done, and then there were the cuddling types, and Bull could have flipped a coin to guess which Pat would be. He half wanted to ask her if it'd been all right, but knew that would be fishing for a compliment. He again thought of Johnny wandering around out there somewhere—Bull very much doubted he'd gone to a film—and felt regret shoot through him. He was in bed with his best friend's wife, and he couldn't see how he'd get through without paying for that some way or other. Which was too bad, because he liked Pat very much, and had liked being with her even more, and he wished he could continue with it. Al, his friend back in Michigan, was the longest he'd ever been with someone at a stretch, and that'd only been a few months. He'd only been here a couple weeks, and already knew that moving on from Columbus would be more difficult than any departure since leaving home at sixteen.

"You're thinking too hard," Pat said. She seemed to be the cuddling type, because she rolled over and rested her head on Bull's shoulder snuggling up against her side as best she could. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her close.

"Can't seem to help it," Bull admitted. He pressed his face into her hair again, deciding that he was going to do his best to hold onto every sensation for as long as he could. Maybe it'd tide him over.

Pat traced whorls in his chest hair with the tip of a painted nail. It still felt strange not to be wearing dog tags; his lovers had used to play with those, when he'd still been in the army. "You worrying about Johnny?" she asked.

"Among other things. Ain't you?"

Her cheek rocked back and forth across his chest as she shook her head. "I've got him in hand. He won't do anything too stupid now."

Bull was pretty sure there was a whole world of stupid Johnny could still get up to, but didn't want to argue with the man's wife. "Just don't want to hurt him again, is all."

He thought Pat might brush off the fight earlier in the day, but she was pensive and quite, finally saying, "I'd take back how we did that if I could, but I can't say I'm sorry for how it turned out." She made her meaning extra clear by tipping her face down to kiss his chest.

"Maybe," Bull said. He'd be more inclined to agree if he could be more sure the truce would hold. He sighed, lifting her head as he heaved in the breath. "Johnny keeps telling me I spend too much time on borrowing trouble."

"Rich coming from him," Pat shot back, but her hand stilled on Bull's chest. She pushed the blankets down a bit and lifted her head a little to look at him. Bull had curled up to protect his stomach and chest, but he had a size-nine boot mark still purpling his ribs, and a fading welt across his shoulder. Pat traced the outline of both with her fingertip, not quite touching his skin. "Guess I can see why you do," she noted.

Bull closed his eyes and set his jaw. He could barely talk about this with Johnny, who on some level understood what it was like to take a beating, but with Pat it seemed impossible. His mind scrambled for a way to turn the conversation away from his bruises, but as it so often did, it came up uselessly blank.

"Denver," Pat said with a clarity that made a man listen, "what they did to you was a sin, and you shouldn't be the one to feel ashamed of it."

There wasn't much a man could say to that. It was good to hear her condemn the cruelty of it, but at the same time Bull couldn't put to words exactly what he felt ashamed of. It was just the miserable, sordid failure of it all, he supposed. He was a grown man who ought to be able to look after himself in a fight. He and Al ought to have been more careful. Bull maybe even thought that he and Al ought not to have been doing anything like this in the first place, and that all those failures strung together had come with an inevitable result. But Bull knew enough to know that you couldn't say any of that to a woman, so he turned it away, and said, "You're the only one who calls me that any more."

"Huh?"

"Denver," Bull said. "Everyone since Toccoa's called me Bull, or Randleman. Old Wild Bill tagged me with it, and I never shook loose, now even outside the army..."

Pat let her head settle back onto Bull's shoulder. "I can call you Bull, if you like," she said. "I just thought Denver suited you, 'sides Johnny dared me to do it."

Bull had some notion that Pat and Johnny spent a lot of time getting each other into a good deal of trouble with those dares. "Naw, it's okay," Bull considered it. "I like being Bull 'cause it seems like... like that was the best man I'll ever be, who I was when I was with the 101st, but Denver reminds me of where I came from, and it's nice to hear someone say it from time to time." He very much doubted he'd hear it from his family again, or at least not any time soon.

"All right, _Denver_ ," Pat said, walking her fingers across his chest, "can I ask you something else?"

"You can ask," Bull said, even though he really would tell her just about anything.

"Do you really want Johnny, or do you think you have to throw him something to stay here?"

Bull caught her hand in his and wove their fingers together to still it. "I've wanted Johnny for a long, long time," he said softly, "and 'fore you ask, it ain't the other way around, neither."

"I think you just proved that," Pat said with a smirk.

"Good," Bull said, satisfied that he'd at least gotten his sincere desire for her across. "Then can I ask you something?"

He thought she'd reply coyly like he had, but instead she told him, "I don't think this is going to work if you can't."

"True enough," Bull agreed. He ran his thumb over her wrist as he considered how to ask what he'd wanted to know since his second day staying in Johnny's house. Her hand looked so delicate in his, but he'd long since learned she was tougher than she looked. "How come you're so easy about all that?"

"All what?" Pat asked, though Bull thought she knew what he meant.

He spelled it out anyway. "I figure Johnny musta told you why I got that beating, 'cause you stopped asking, but you ain't tried to throw me out, and then your own husband up and tells you he's half way to being a queer, and you just said that was fine, and let him stay too. It ain't like I'm objecting, but it ain't what... well, I guess I'm trying to find out why you ain't making a fuss about it. Johnny least makes sense, said he weren't one to throw stones, but you ain't, are you?"

Pat laughed. "A lesbian? No, not so far as I know." She drummed her fingers along the back of Bull's hand for a moment before saying. "You two aren't the first men like you I've known, is all. There's someone else I hold pretty dear who's like the two of you, except he doesn't like women at all. Anyway, he's never been like what they say. You know? If he isn't, why should you and Johnny be? The whole thing's just bunk, isn't it?"

"Reckon it might be," Bull said, though he'd never been able to sort through if it was or not. He'd ended up settling on the idea that so long as he wasn't hurting anyone, what he himself did might well be wrong, but he didn't seem to be able to give it up, and didn't see the point in tying himself in knots trying. It wasn't always the happiest of compromises, but it seemed like the best he could do. Still, he didn't see why someone as smart as Pat would handcuff herself to all this if she didn't have to. Johnny was one thing; she'd married him, after all, and he was as good as normal, but Bull?

"Should probably get up," Bull said.

"No, stay, I want to sleep on you," Pat said, and she didn't seem to be joking. To prove her point she wiggled against him and seemed very much like she was going to have a nap right there against his side, both of them still naked, their clothes scattered all over the floor, and the room smelling like sex.

"I don't like to think of how Johnny will feel walking in on this," Bull ventured. "He did ask me not to rub his nose in it."

Pat sighed, again drumming her fingers on Bull's knuckles. "Johnny don't always know what's best for him," she said. "Sometimes, he needs someone to knock some sense into that thick skull of his, show him he's getting all worked up over nothing."

It wasn't that Bull disagreed with Pat's assessment of Johnny, who could tie himself into the most elaborate knots Bull had ever seen, it was just that it had been a very long day full of far too many shocks, and Bull didn't think now was the right time to deliver another one. He didn't have the stomach for it just then. "Maybe so," he said, "but in any case, I think I'll get up and make us some dinner."

"No, don't go," she said, suddenly almost childish, and Bull thought of her shouted accusation that they were both going to leave her to raise the baby by herself.

Bull felt torn between them, but the thought of Johnny wandering around by himself drove Bull out of the bed. Pat tried to hold onto him, but he gently pried her fingers loose, and kissed her forehead. "Now I'll just be in the kitchen, sweetheart," he said. "You get some sleep."

He folded her clothes and set them beside the bed, then picked up his own and had a quick shower before starting to cook.

Johnny huffed in forty minutes later, just as Bull was heating the oil to fry chicken. He leaned in the kitchen doorway staring at Bull, but Bull could tell his mind was in the bedroom, where it had been since he'd left.

"Pat's having a nap," Bull said without turning. "Maybe go wake her up. This'll be ready soon."

"Wore her out, did you?" Johnny asked, and Bull didn't like the bitter edge in his tone.

Bull clicked the stove off before turning, arms folded across his apron. He was just in his undershirt and pants, hair still a little damp from the shower, and he wished he didn't look quite so much like he'd been doing what he'd just been doing. Johnny, for his part, had a month's worth of grief and worry written on his face. Bull couldn't stand it. It wasn't fair that they were making Johnny all twisted up like that, especially under his own roof. He crossed the kitchen until he stood in front of Johnny, who was glaring up at Bull like he was the enemy, then bent down to kiss him.

It took Johnny a moment to catch on to what was going on. At first, he stood like a fence post, and let Bull move his lips against Johnny's unresponsive mouth. When Bull touched the side of his neck, Johnny made a sound close to a sob and parted his lips, his hand coming up to cover Bull's heart. He rose onto his toes to lean into the kiss, and it turned open-mouthed and frantic: Johnny clinging to Bull's shirt as Bull stroked his face and tried to remember how to breathe. He felt Johnny's tongue pressing into his mouth a moment before Johnny put his arms around Bull's neck and jumped up to straddle his waist. Moving on pure instinct, Bull grabbed a double handful of Johnny's ass and shoved Johnny's back against the wall to hold him in place. Bull felt Johnny grinning against his mouth—his fierce "someone's gonna die in this fight and it's not going to be me" grin—and felt his heart rate kick up at the challenge.

He could feel Johnny's cock already getting hard against his stomach at the same time as his brushed the bottom of Johnny's ass. He didn't want to strip Johnny slowly and make love to him; Bull wanted to drill him into the wall right there in the kitchen, fuck every single doubt out of him. He needed to get enough of their clothes off to do it, which was a problem when he was holding Johnny up, and Johnny's hands were as busy with Bull's hair as Pat's had been. They stayed stuck there, grinding ineffectively against each other as they kissed. Bull could probably come just like this, but he thought he'd regret it if that was their first time.

He broke away from the kiss long enough to gasp, "Need to get you in a bed an' fuck you proper."

Bull'd expected that to egg Johnny on, but instead he went still, and looked at Bull with wide, startled eyes. Both their pulses were racing, but Bull could see Johnny's fluttering against his throat, and thought at least some of that was anxiety, not arousal.

Johnny'd never been with anyone other than Pat, and now Bull had him pinned to the wall and was talking about screwing him. Sometimes, Bull hated that his size could intimidate even his best friend. There was no way to gentle his hold without dropping Johnny on the floor, but Bull kissed his cheek and put his lips to his ear to whisper, "I'd never do a thing you didn't want."

"Yeah," Johnny said, but he also let his head fall forward to hide his face against Bull's neck.

The problem with Johnny was that if he said he'd do something, he'd damn well do it, and not count the cost until it was over. If he thought that keeping Bull around involved letting Bull fuck him, he'd go through with it without a whimper. There wouldn't be any talking him down, either, without insulting his pride, which had taken too much of a drubbing already that day.

Why did everyone in this house have to be so damn complicated?

"Told Pat I'd make dinner," Bull said. "We don't have time for much. How 'bout I just stroke you off? Is that okay?"

He rolled his hips so that Johnny's cock rubbed against Bull's stomach, and from Johnny's moan, he didn't think there was any objection to a plan that involved him getting off.

Bull shifted his grip, and moved away from the wall, letting Johnny slide back to his feet. He was really going to have to figure out how to both satisfy his desire and circumvent Johnny's trepidation at some point, but it wasn't going to be today. They went into Bull's room, which still looked like it'd been hit by a grenade, and stood looking at each other once the door was closed. Not too long ago, Johnny had undressed Bull to tend his wounds, and Bull could see the memory of that night as strong in Johnny's mind as it was his own. Bull decided that he definitely wasn't going to take his clothes off this time, at least not more than he had to.

Trying to shift their thoughts to something more pleasant, Bull asked, "You said you used to think about being with me; did you have anything in mind?"

"Dunno," Johnny muttered, eyes fixed on his shoes, like there was something wrong with not magically knowing how to have sex. "Guess I didn't think much past how much I wanted to kiss you, hold you, that kind of thing. You ever think of me?"

"Ever since Toccoa," Bull said. Over the last three and a half years, he'd pictured being with Johnny in just about every way it was possible for two fellows to get the thing done. Bull had never been picky enough to have preferences past chasing what felt good, which he was pretty sure would be everything with Johnny. He wished he could find the words to promise Johnny that he'd show him how good all of this could feel without scaring him off.

"You sure..." Johnny started to ask, presumably on the way to finding out if Bull didn't _really_ just want to be with Pat, and not him.

In order to shut him up, Bull pulled him against his chest and kissed him, while at the same time undoing his belt. He backed Johnny up until his knees hit the edge of the bed, intending to push him over so that he could lay him out and strip him down, but Johnny hung onto Bull's arms and wouldn't be toppled.

"Easy," Bull murmured, catching Johnny around the waist and lowering them both to the bed. "Just going to jerk you off, all right?"

Johnny relaxed enough for Bull to get him onto the bed and lie behind him, so they were both facing the wall, with Johnny closed between it and Bull's body. He finished getting Johnny's belt open and fished through his fly and shorts until he had his hand wrapped around Johnny's dick.

"What about you?" Johnny asked, even as he started to whimper in time with Bull's strokes. Johnny had to be able to feel Bull's dick pressing against his ass even through both their clothing.

"Don't worry 'bout me," Bull murmured into Johnny's ear. He was trying not to think of how easy it would be to roll Johnny over and screw him. He'd wanted it for so long, and Johnny would let him. "You just let me look after you. This feel good?"

"Yeah," Johnny moaned, and tried to snuggle back closer to Bull, but their bodies were already as close as they could get with all these clothes still on. Bull wished he could hold Johnny like this forever, keep him wrapped in his arms and safe, humming with desire as Bull slowly, slowly drew his pleasure from him. He stroked Johnny off like he himself liked: the rough draw of his hand up his shaft with a twist at the end, grip close to painfully tight, so that the skin slid over the stiffness.

"Feels so good to hold you," Bull murmured. "Love the sounds you make, how you let me know you like it." He couldn't help rolling his hips forward to rub his cock against Johnny's ass, but from the way Johnny whimpered at the contact, he didn't mind too much. Maybe Johnny would pull his pants down enough for Bull to slide between his thighs.

"What... what about you?" Johnny asked again. "Someone's gotta worry."

"Shhh," Bull put his fingers to Johnny's lips, and Johnny nipped at them, then wrapped his lips around them and started to suck. "Oh, Lord," Bull groaned. He couldn't feel Johnny's tongue rolling across the pads of his fingers and not think of feeling the same on the head of his cock. "I don't think you're gonna have to do anything for me."

Johnny replied by sucking harder, his mouth slurping around Bull's fingers, and Bull had to grit his teeth from coming just at the feel of Johnny's mouth, and his round ass pressed right against Bull's cock. Johnny was breathing hard through his nose and rocking with Bull's body as he rolled their hips together in time with his strokes up Johnny's cock. Bull wished he had his thoughts strung together well enough to tell Johnny all the things he liked about him, everything he wanted to do together with him, how long he'd wanted to have Johnny falling apart in his arms. All he could do was keep kissing the patch of skin above Johnny's collar and below his hair, just behind his ear. His skin tasted salty and sharp from perspiration and aftershave, and Bull wanted to lick across his whole neck.

He didn't have time, Johnny was coming now, his body shaking as it tensed and then releasing in a sharp jerk. Bull pulled his fingers out of Johnny's mouth so that he could gasp for air, and they lay like that for a while.

Bull was still hard enough that the lust made him dizzy, but he wanted to wait and see what Johnny would like instead of just rubbing off against him. He never minded floating on the edge of completion anyway; it always felt like a world full of open possibilities and potential pleasures, which wasn't a sensation he experienced much in the rest of his life.

"Hey," Johnny said eventually. He wiggled his ass against Bull's cock and chuckled when Bull groaned. "Why don't you let me look after that, huh?"

It wasn't something Bull was ever going to be able to turn down, and especially not from Johnny, so he nodded against the back of Johnny's head and let himself be pushed onto his back. Johnny meanwhile zipped himself back up and scrambled to the foot of the bed, so that he could kneel astride Bull's ankles. As he fussed with belt buckle and button fly, Bull rested his head back on the pillow and folded his arms behind it. Handcuffing himself to the bed would probably be safer, but he hoped this would be enough of a reminder not to interfere with whatever Johnny wanted to try. Lying like that with just his cock out, Johnny kneeling at his feet also fully dressed made the whole thing feel more transactional than Bull had intended, and Bull couldn't tell if that turned him on more or less. It was hard to tell anything with that much desire flooding through him.

Bull had expected that Johnny would provide a reciprocal hand job, and almost stopped breathing when he leaned forward and put his lips around the tip of Bull's cock.

The heat of it shocked him. Johnny's tongue tentatively nudged the tip of his dick, then circled around it. Johnny had the angle of his head all wrong, and wasn't going to be able to take much of Bull in like that, but he probably wouldn't need to. Just the sight of Johnny's dark head bent over Bull's lap, even without the tentative curl of Johnny's lips around his dick would have been enough to bring Bull off. He was glad that he had his hands behind his head, because he wanted to bury his hands in Johnny's hair and pull him down onto him. His legs trembled as he forced himself to lie perfectly still, and not thrust up.

"Jesus Christ," Bull whispered.

Johnny pulled back and looked up at him with narrowed eyes. "I know I ain't no good at this yet, so give me a break, okay?"

Bull shook his head. "You were doing just fine, Johnny. More than fine."

"Sure." Johnny didn't sound like he believed it. It seemed like all he knew about this came from dirty talk, which had a lot in it about being swallowed down whole, and other nonsense. Johnny glared down at Bull's cock like it was an enemy MG. "Look, you wanna give me some advice or something?"

"Lord," Bull muttered. He hadn't been prepared for teaching Johnny about sex, even though as the more experienced one, he supposed it followed. It wasn't like he hadn't brought boys out before, it's just that this was _Johnny_ , and that made it a different matter altogether.

Johnny grimaced, and Bull could see the disappointment in his expression, not in Bull but in himself for not being able to please Bull.

"All right, all right," Bull said, and tried to think of the words to explain something that he found instinctual by now. "You don't have to just swallow the whole thing down. You can take the lower part in your hand, and suck the top, or you can lick the outside, and suck after."

Johnny bent down again, spreading his legs and balancing his weight on his elbows, trusting Bull to stay where he was and not buck up at his touch. He tried licking first, his hot tongue sliding stripes up from the base of Bull's cock to the tip. When Bull moaned appreciatively, he grinned and got bolder, using the broadest part of his tongue and covering the base and sides of Bull's dick in long, sweeping licks. The day's worth of stubble on his cheek and upper lip kept scraping a little, heightening the pleasure of the wet velvet of Johnny's tongue. He kept stopping just short of the head of Bull's cock, letting the air cool it while the rest of his body felt too hot, and Bull thought Johnny pretty well knew what he was doing to him, but decided to tell him anyway.

"That's real fine," he said, flexing his hands until he had his fingers twisted in his own hair. The edge of pain helped him to stay still for Johnny. "That feels so sweet, just right. Just, oh, Christ, yes."

Johnny had wrapped his hand around the base of Bull's dick and took the rest in his mouth until his lips met his fingers. He was still licking, or at least rolling the width of his tongue along the bottom of Bull's cock. He sucked and pulled his hand up as he lifted off a little then plunged down. Bull squirmed under the perfect pressure of Johnny's mouth, but managed not to thrust up into it. The only reason he was holding on at all was he'd closed his eyes and imagined being out in a winter field in just his skivvies.

"Put your hand on my balls," he said, then cried out at the roughness of Johnny's skin there. "Yeah. God, Johnny." Bull felt his body drawing tighter, like he was taking a breath before pulling the trigger, and finally now he brought his arm down to touch Johnny's shoulder. "Okay, okay, I'm gonna—"

Johnny sucked harder, and Bull spilled into his mouth. He'd meant to hold off until he could get Johnny to stop sucking him, but it was too much, and now Johnny was spluttering, and had Bull's come dripping out of his mouth and still spurting all over his face. Bull watched dazedly as Johnny wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, grimaced at the mess. He groped around for something to clean up with and came up with one of Bull's under shirts, discarded in his rush to pack earlier. Bull supposed it served him right for leaving it there.

"You all right?" Bull asked as Johnny coughed and mopped his face, then Bull's cock.

"Yeah, fine," Johnny grumbled. "Just not very good at this."

Bull sat up and caught Johnny's face between his hands, holding him steady until he would look Bull in the eyes. "You were just right," he said, putting every ounce of sincerity he could muster into the words.

"Sure," Johnny said again, trying to twist away, but Bull scooted forward until he could pull Johnny against his chest. He held him close, arms wrapped tight around him until Johnny stopped trying to squirm away and finally caught his breath.

"I mean it, Johnny," Bull said. "I mean it. You were perfect. I couldn't have asked for better. I'd never have asked for anyone else, understand?"

Johnny didn't answer, but he did hold onto Bull a little tighter, and Bull hoped that was some sign that his words had sunk in. He knew that Johnny desperately needed to believe that he was good enough to have earned not just Bull's but Pat's affection, and wished there were a way to prove to him once and for all that he didn't need to earn a damn thing.

Bull kissed the top of Johnny's head, and said, "Come on now, we're gonna make dinner late. Why don't you go wash up, huh?"

But by the time Bull had tidied up his room, and Johnny had washed his face, Pat was already up and frying the chicken anyway.

Bull set the table, and watched Johnny go to stand behind her and wrap his arms around her middle. Johnny whispered something in Pat's ear, and Pat laughed and twisted her head around enough to kiss him. Bull sighed, relieved that everything looked to be okay there. He truly never would have been able to forgive himself if he'd managed to screw up Johnny's marriage.

It was strange to sit around the same table they'd been sharing for weeks, but knowing now that everything was different between them. When they'd had breakfast together, Bull had still been telling himself that he'd be strong enough to keep his hands to himself, and put all that he felt for both of them into working hard and bringing home a pay cheque to help support them. He'd decided that if he could make himself as useful as he could, he'd be able to stay in good conscience, and catch some of the warmth of their affection, like a drifter lingering next to a bakery door, hoping for a blast of heat and the smell of baking bread every time someone came or went. Now, he'd had sex with both of them, and they'd both told him they wanted him to stay, and that they wanted to keep having sex with him. The only way Bull knew it wasn't all some kind of fabulous dream was that he'd never had a dream this sweet.

They all kept sneaking looks at each other, and smiling when they got caught, and bumping their toes and ankles together under the table, but not saying a word. Johnny looked like he agreed with Bull on not being sure how something this good was actually happening to him. Pat looked like she'd just been elected homecoming queen by a unanimous vote, and was trying not to obviously gloat.

Bull didn't even know what he could say in the face of all that happiness, so he just smiled and ate and shared looks with the other two. After dinner, Pat said she had to catch up on some work she'd put off by sleeping the afternoon away, and Johnny said he had to study, which left Bull with the dishes, listening to the radio and soaking in the sound of other bodies moving around the house.

He'd had a hard time living on his own again after he'd moved back to Michigan. On his own beat a boarding house, because at least he could bring guests back to his tiny, dingy apartment, but he'd grown so used to eating and sleeping and breathing in the constant company of a hundred men who were absolutely loyal to each other that the isolation of it had stung him. It'd seemed like one hour of loneliness had stretched into another, and there didn't seem as if there'd ever be an end to it, until everything had fallen apart, and Bull had been forced to leave even that.

None of it seemed real, and he didn't think it ever would. He'd come here and found the kind of sanctuary he'd never imagined. He'd started thinking that maybe it would all just fall apart before he quite knew how good he had it, but then it _had_ fallen apart, and somehow that'd just made it turn out even better than it had before.

When Bull finished the dishes, he went to sit in the living room. Pat had her books spread out on the couch next to her, and Bull thought that Johnny might like the chair later, so he sat on the floor next to Pat, his head resting on her hip. She stoked his hair, and he closed his eyes and let himself drift off, basking in the glow of being near her.

"Oh!" she said, startling Bull. "Gimme your hand." Bull held up his right hand, and she took it in hers and placed it on the bare skin of her belly, under her blouse. "Baby's kicking," she said, but Bull could already feel that, the little thud, thud, thud against his palm. He couldn't imagine how small it must be inside her, probably just the size of a new-born puppy, so little its eyes weren't open yet, small enough for Bull to hold it in his cupped hands. He'd held his littlest cousins when they'd been born, and wondered at them. It hardly seemed possible that Johnny Martin was going to be a father soon.

Soon, Johnny and Pat would have a baby to worry about. Bull tried not to think about how that would affect his situation, it seemed selfish even to consider it, but Pat seemed able to pick up his thoughts. "It'll be good to have you around to help out," she said. "I have a feeling Johnny's going to be hopeless at first, but you're good with babies, aren't you?"

"Haven't managed to drop one, anyhow," Bull said. He could change diapers and knew how to hold them, too, though not much beyond that.

"I'm told that's a good start," Pat said. She drew his hand out from under her shirt and kissed the backs of his knuckles. "I'm not sure I know what the hell to do with one either," she admitted softly. "Hope we don't mess the poor thing up too badly while we're figuring it out."

Bull didn't think that any kid raised by two people who were as crazy about each other as Johnny and Pat would come out too badly, and said as much.

"Guess not," Pat said, and squeezed his hand. "And you. We're crazy about you, too."

"I can't say as I understand that," Bull said, face so hot it could have sparked a match, "but I sure ain't going to turn it down, neither."

Pat shifted so that her leg draped off the edge of the couch and over Bull's shoulder, her heel lightly tapping against his chest. Her skirt had hiked up, and she wasn't wearing stockings. Bull bent his head to kiss the inside of his knee, and ran his hand up and down her calf, massaging gently.

"I don't think any of us understand what we're doing," Pat said, more seriously than Bull had expected, "but I don't think we need to, not yet, anyway. We'll figure it out later. That's not what matters right now."

"What matters then?" Bull asked, hypnotised by the way his hand could circle right around her ankle, how the curve of her calf seemed to match the curve of his palm.

"That we're all crazy about each other, I guess," Pat said, sounding like she was working it out as she thought. "That you and Johnny are good men who want to look after each other, that even if we don't always get it right the first time, we try until we do."

"Suppose that'll do," Bull said. When she said it, it did seem like it would be enough for now, maybe even forever, but Bull had seen how the world treated those who didn't toe the line of what people ought to be and do. He promised himself right then that he'd leave and never look back, that he'd cut himself off from every member of Easy Company there ever was before he let an ounce of that fall on Pat and Johnny.

The light changed and Bull looked up to see Johnny standing over them, his arms folded. "You feeling up my wife again?"

"Might be I am," Bull said, not pausing as he stroked up and down Pat's calf.

Johnny winked at him and leaned down to kiss the top of Bull's head before bracing an arm on the back of the couch to give Pat a more lingering kiss. "You geniuses worked out who's sleeping where tonight?"

"Not much to figure out," Bull said, though he hadn't really thought about it.

Pat ignored him. "I don't think all four of us are going to fit in our bed," she said, and sounded like she regretted it.

"So are we drawing straws or something?" Johnny asked. "Short one gets the twin?"

Pat's leg over one shoulder, and Johnny leaning over the other kept Bull locked in place unless he wanted to risk some kind of upset, so he couldn't push himself to his feet indignantly like he wanted to. "You ain't doing no such thing," Bull snapped. "I'm not putting neither of you out. 'Sides which, I won't even be here most nights."

He could almost hear Johnny and Pat exchanging a look, and Pat's leg swayed back and forth across his chest as she thought it over. "Maybe it'd be better if we gave Denver a little time to himself, huh?" she said. "Take a little time to ourselves, too?"

There was obviously something going on with Pat's hands that Bull couldn't see, because Johnny sounded a little strained when he answered, "I see your point. Good enough for tonight, anyway."

That settled, Johnny moved Pat's papers enough to sit on the edge of the couch and take her other foot in his lap. His knee brushed Bull's shoulder, and Bull closed his other hand around Johnny's ankle. They sat there in silence for a long time until Pat finished her work and said she wanted to go to bed.

Bull spent half an hour unpacking and putting his room back together before turning in, but even with the radio on low, he couldn't ignore the soft laughter and sounds of pleasure coming from Johnny and Pat's room. It occurred to him that he hadn't heard anything of the kind since he'd gotten there, and he wondered if Johnny and Pat had waited until he'd gone to his night shifts at the rail yards, or if they'd been abstaining on account of a guest in the house.

They'd settled down by the time Bull undressed for bed, which left him sleeping alone in a silent house, wondering how that could feel so different than it had the day before. Before, he might have allowed himself to have a distant yearning to be in the bed in the other room. Now, he'd not only been in it, but could be again any time he asked.

It'd been so sweet. Even if everyone woke up the next morning back in their right minds, at least Bull would always have those moments of love and joy to keep him going. Bull curled on his side, putting his back to the wall and wrapping his arms around a pillow, and imagined being cuddled up between Johnny and Pat.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Making the chapters a little shorter from now on, as they're ballooning out of control otherwise.

Bull still wasn't used to his see-saw schedule of working five nights a week, then sharing a household with day dwellers the rest of the time. He hoped he figured out when to sleep eventually, but just then he still woke up too early. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling for a while, then decided to get up and find something useful to do.

The house was still and dark, and Bull felt like an intruder as he padded around in his sock feet, but at least he was an intruder who knew his way around the kitchen. He had hash browns cooking and eggs ready to start as soon as he heard the shower click on. The radio hummed low in the background, but Bull wasn't really listening to it. His mind kept flip flopping between memories of Pat moaning beneath him and Johnny's mouth on his dick, and trying to figure out how any of this was going to work. He kept hearing Pauly's sneering voice, all the terrible things he and his buddies had said, and imagining them showing up here and starting in on Bull again or, worse, going after Johnny. Johnny would fight them. He'd always been bad at retreating, usually needing Bull to drag him away.

He was standing at the sink, arms braced on the counter staring out past the street in front of the house, staring at nothing at all, when Johnny came in with a soft good morning, and a soppy smile when Bull dragged himself back into the moment and turned to look at him. One glance was enough to make Bull twitch the curtains closed and turn back for a proper assessment.

Johnny was still towelling his hair dry. He had shaving cream on his ear, and Bull was in the middle of reaching over with a dish cloth to wipe it away when Johnny ducked under his reach and wrapped his arms around Bull's neck so that he could pull him down into a kiss. Johnny tasted like toothpaste and his skin was still damp and warm. The touch felt electric, sparking everything in the dim little kitchen until it glowed with desire and the smells of soap and aftershave. Bull ran his hands up and down Johnny's back, feeling the lean muscles through the thin cotton of his t-shirt.

"You got any coffee made?" Johnny asked after he pulled away.

Bull tilted his head towards the pot. "Could start every morning with a kiss like that," he said before he thought it through.

"So could I," Johnny agreed. He poured Bull a fresh cup too, and turned on the pan for the eggs, then came back to stand next to Bull.

They didn't say anything, just stood side by side like they had so many times through those long hours of waiting that came before an action. They'd never talked much then either; the knowledge that whatever came, they'd do their best to look after each other had been enough. Johnny had been the solid rock Bull could lean on through six countries and far too many losses. Maybe not being able to turn to Johnny was where it'd gone wrong after they'd gotten home. Though that wasn't fair. Johnny had sent him a couple newsy letters, and Bull hadn't been able to answer them with much more than a change of address and a sorry line or two. He could have fit all that on a postcard, but he'd still fretted that Johnny hadn't written again. He'd checked the mail every day, and every day felt a sting of disappointment when a new letter wasn't there, then a spark of recognition that of course there wasn't. Why would anyone bother?

Bull was about to say that he was sorry he hadn't been better about writing when Pat came in in just her robe, which pretty much stopped every reasonable thought in Bull's head. He didn't know if he should be staring at her legs or her breasts, or keeping his eyes to himself like a gentleman. He was pretty sure she didn't want the last one, at least. She hadn't worn just the robe around the house before he'd said he'd liked looking at her legs.

Johnny wolf whistled, and was just as obviously staring at her ass as she went for coffee as Bull was. The blue satin only went mid way down her thighs, and if she bent over just a little...

"You mean for this pan to be on?" she asked.

"Was thinking of eggs," Bull said, kickstarted back into motion.

Pat kissed him in passing as they traded places, then kissed Johnny too, which almost distracted Bull again, because he liked looking at them together so much. They were both the same height, and had the same dark hair, though Johnny's was straighter, not the pitch black curls that Pat had spilled out from where she'd tied them up out of the way of the shower. They just looked like they should fit, and they did. Their kid was going to be so beautiful.

When they were all sitting around the table, Johnny waited for a pause, looked from Bull to Pat, and then said, "Look. I've been thinking."

"Oh, no," Bull and Pat said as one.

Johnny rolled his eyes, but didn't let them shut him up. "If we're gonna make this happen, I think we should actually talk about how it's gonna work, is all."

Bull pretty much agreed that they should talk about it, but also couldn't think of anything he wanted to do less. Having someone write up a treaty and getting him to sign it seemed like it would be easier. Fumbling forward on their own like Pat had been talking about had a lot more appeal generally. From Pat's expression, she agreed entirely.

"How do you mean?" Bull asked cautiously.

"When Pat and I tied the knot, we had to say in front of God and everyone that we'd look after each other until we died, to have and to hold, and all that, right?" He was fingering his wedding ring, and feeling his way forward, and even though Pat's eyes were narrowing, Bull held up a hand so that she'd let Johnny finish. He had an expression like he did when he was laying out a move, trying to turn Peacock's orders into some kind of workable plan. "If I'm about to really cock something up, I think of that, like a guideline. I've got to love and cherish her, right?"

"Right," Pat said, and she held her left hand out for Johnny to take. His finger brushed her ring, and Bull felt tears rising in him, and not because he was left out of that little circle of two, but because that right there was what love was supposed to be, and damn if Bull wasn't the kind of sentimental bastard who cried at weddings. He wished he'd been there with Bill to see Johnny's.

"I..." Bull started to say, then shook his head. "Johnny, no."

Johnny didn't let go of Pat's hand but he turned to look at Bull, and said, "I ain't talking about that kind of promise right now, but we gotta have something? Something so that when things are bad, we can think of it, and it'll get us through, you know?"

For some reason, Bull thought of Don Malarkey and his poetry, how he held onto that one about being the captain of his soul even through Bastogne and the camps, even when he didn't look like he much believed the words any more. "Makes sense," Bull said. "Just all I can think of is, 'Don't mess this up, Randleman,' which ain't all the way to helpful."

Pat snorted. "It could be more specific," she said. "What if we each had something like that? Something we didn't want anyone to do? If we managed not to do any of them, we'd be doing okay."

"Sure," Johnny said. "Like army regs. They're all don't do this or that, ain't they? Except now I can't think of anything either."

"Me neither." Actually, Bull could think of quite a few army regulations, many of which he'd broken in spirit if not in letter, but none of which felt like they should be brought up now.

"I've got one," Pat said. She took a breath and raised her chin, sitting upright in her rickety kitchen chair like the Queen of England. "No one decides anything big without talking to the other two first. And I don't mean screaming and storming out. I mean talking."

The day before she'd told Johnny that she was worried they'd both leave her all alone to raise the baby by herself. Bull very nearly had, and Johnny had probably offered, and there hadn't been a damn thing Pat had been able to do to stop them except sit in her room and cry.

"All right," Bull said, and Johnny nodded, bringing Pat's hand up to his lips to kiss her knuckles. His expression was soft and full of apology. He'd been right about needing some kind of guideline to hold onto. The last thing either of them had ever wanted to do was hurt Pat, and they'd both managed it the day before. If Johnny hadn't come home from school early and stopped him, Bull would have ruined everything for them.

He could still ruin everything for them, just by being there.

"I got one too," Bull said, as the idea came to him. He waited until they stopped mooning into each other's eyes and turned to him, then said, "We don't tell a living soul 'bout any of it. This, what we're doing, what I am, it all stays secret."

"Of course," Johnny started to say, but Bull sliced his hand through the air.

"I don't mean just from the likes of Mr. Wilson, I know you ain't stupid. I mean Bill and Frannie and Major Winters, and Pat's ma, and everyone. Forever." He hadn't meant to speak so forcefully, and found he had to take a breath and lay his hands flat out on the table to still them again, and settle the fear lit inside him by the idea of the harm a single wrong word might cause.

Johnny was nodding. He looked grimmer than Bull would have liked for what had started as a companionable morning together, but at least not telling Bull he was a fool.

"What about this one?" Pat asked, her hand on her stomach.

Bull hadn't really thought he'd be around long enough for that to be a consideration. "Let's sort that out when he looks like he'll be old enough to talk."

"I can see how forethought is serving us well already," Pat said, but she nodded. "Fine, it stays secret. I haven't the least idea how I'd explain this to my mother anyway."

They both looked at Johnny, who grimaced. "I guess this was my idea, wasn't it?"

"Yup," Pat agreed, but Bull reached out and took his free hand, and squeezed it gently. He had a notion that Johnny had come into this with an idea of what he wanted, but now was just about choking on words he'd told himself he'd say.

"Go on, Johnny," Bull said.

That got him a glare, but Johnny stopped chewing his lip and said, "No one has to do anything they don't want to."

Pat pushed her chair back slightly. "Well, that's me out of ironing for the rest of this marriage."

Bull wanted to say that he quite enjoyed ironing and would be happy to do every last bit of it, but knew that was missing the point of her jab, and looked to see how Johnny was taking it.

He'd flushed and was trying to pull his hand back from Pat, who wasn't letting go. "That ain't what I mean," he said, looked to Pat for help, found her pitiless, and scowled down at his plate. "I mean, no one does something that he or she don't want just to make one of the others happy."

"He means in bed," Bull said, and the understanding made him shiver. Had he already been pushing Johnny into more than he wanted? He'd thought he'd been so careful.

"Oh!" Pat's eyes went wide, and she looked at Johnny in alarm. "But we wouldn't."

Johnny's face had gone as still as if he were on inspection. "We wouldn't mean to," he said, and even after all his years in the army, his eyes still flicked over to glance at Bull. Pat's gaze followed Johnny's and her mouth set.

Bull felt the blood rush out of his face so quickly he felt a little dizzy. He had to grip the edge of the table with his free hand and take one deep breath after another. God, he hadn't meant to.

"Fuck," Johnny muttered. "I ain't meant that."

Pat sucked her teeth, and reached across to touch Bull. "Hey," she said softly, then rubbed her knuckles up and down his unshaven cheek. "Hey. He didn't mean that. He meant..." she stopped and glanced at Johnny.

"I meant I'm worried about you," Johnny said, and Pat sighed loudly. "You shouldn't let me talk then," Johnny snapped. "Sometimes I worry you think you have to earn a place here, is all, and that's crap. None of us has to do anything just to... to make the others keep him, okay?"

"Okay?" Pat echoed.

Bull was looking down still, but he could feel them exchanging worried looks, and hated that too. He twitched his head away from Pat, and pulled his hand free of Johnny's and went to stand by the window. Johnny was right: there probably wasn't anything Bull wouldn't do, in bed or out of it, if he thought it would hold his place here. He was very nearly desperate not to mess things up, here in the best place he'd found in his whole life. If they asked him to sleep across the doorway like a dog, he probably wouldn't even ask for a blanket.

It wasn't a good place for a man to be. That probably wasn't the kind of man they wanted.

Behind him, chairs creaked as Pat and Johnny put their heads together. Bull couldn't even tell if they were whispering, or just exchanging worried looks at a closer range.

"Don't know if I can promise that and mean it," Bull said finally. He let his eyes drift most of the way shut so that the world blurred into a golden haze of morning sunlight though yellow kitchen curtains. "I don't know if I can tell what I want."

"Well," Pat said, and Bull could tell she was choosing her words with the care of a man placing his steps in a minefield, "has there been anything we've done so far that you haven't wanted?"

Bull thought back. It'd all been clear with her, just wanting to make her feel good, and finding pleasure in her pleasure, and how enthusiastic she'd been. With Johnny, he'd worried that he was going to upset him, but then Johnny had also responded with enthusiasm, had liked what they'd done together, pushed through his uncertainty to try to make Bull feel good too, had insisted on it even. "No," Bull said. "That's what I mean: I want all of it. Reckon I want it too much."

A chair pushed back, and he heard the soft pad of Pat's bare feet on the kitchen floor, then felt a small hand on his back, resting lightly between his shoulder blades. "I don't like to think how hard it's been for you," she said. Her voice was soft, but each word sliced into Bull. "It's easier to just think of you since you've gotten here, how perfect it's been, and how much I like you."

Bull should probably say that he liked her too, or anything at all, but he just stood there like an idiot with his hands braced on the edge of the counter, same as he'd been standing when Johnny had come in that morning. He wondered if he'd every feel like he was in the right time again, other than when he was having sex; then, at least, he could let the rest of it fall away.

"Why don't we make Johnny's promise along with the others?" Pat asked, persistent as water on stone. "Promise, and mean it, and work out what it means later, huh?"

"Then at least you won't have to worry about us," Johnny said, which was a good point, though didn't make Bull feel like he was being condescended to any less.

He took a deep breath, then turned to face the others. "All right," he said: "No big choices without talking 'em through; this all stays secret, and no doing stuff we don't want just to please the others."

"Close enough." Pat stepped in until they were standing pressed up against each other, and rewarded his promise with a kiss. Bull knew it was a reward, but he still put his hands on her hips and steadied her as she stood on her toes. The kiss lingered, and Bull kept his eyes open so he could watch her close hers. She whimpered in pleasure when he kissed her back, and Bull knew he was never going to get tired of that sound. Christ, he loved the feel of her body against his. He let his hand slide down until he was cupping her ass. He didn't think she was wearing anything at all under that robe. Bull could feel his dick stiffening, and wished they had time for anything like that.

Johnny groaned, and Bull looked to where he was still sitting at the table watching Bull grope his wife right in front of him. He didn't look jealous this time, at least not with that pained attempt at bravery in the face of thinking Pat wanted Bull more. Now, he looked like he wanted to be the one kissing, and the one being kissed.

Pat broke away so she could look at him too, and in the process seemed to notice the kitchen clock above the stove. "Shit," she muttered. "Work." She pecked Bull on the lips in farewell, and then Johnny on the forehead as she passed, her robe lifting to show the curve of her ass as she vanished towards her room.

"You all right?" Johnny asked.

Bull shrugged. It was difficult to say what he was feeling. Horny, certainly, though Pat's departure had eased that a little; humiliated that they'd been able to cut right through him like that, and ashamed that they had to coddle him, but also strangely relieved. This had to be about the worst thing they could know about him—how weak he could be—and Pat had said it was all right, and that they'd all take care of each other. Bull only wished he knew that he could pull his own weight in that regard.

"I'm sorry," Johnny said, and Bull snapped back to where he was. "I didn't mean to drop all this on you like that."

Bull shook his head. "Better this way, I figure," he said. "You were right. We'll be lost without some idea of what this is about."

"Yeah, maybe," Johnny said. He was still at the table, their empty plates scattered around him, like he was a lord at a feast off of his own. He'd stayed sitting there so that Bull could have half a kitchen's space to himself. "I just..." he stopped, looked at his hands, then back at Bull. "I care about you a whole lot, all right? It matters to me that you're okay."

Bull found that he was nodding slightly even as the words crept into his chest and wound themselves around his heart. "Yeah, I know, Johnny," he said. "I feel the same."

"Good." Johnny shoved back his chair and started collecting the plates and cutlery, bringing them over to the sink. "I can do these if you wanna grab a shower."

Pat breezed in, dressed for work, her low heels clicking on the linoleum. "I'll see you boys later, huh?"

It was easy for her to kiss both of them, one then the other, as they stood by the sink, then breeze out again with her books in a briefcase. She looked like an attorney, not the bookkeeper at a shipping firm.

"What the hell's she doing with us?" Johnny asked as the front door clicked shut behind her, and Bull shook his head. "But listen," Johnny continued, "when I get back from school, maybe all three of us could, you know, see if we fit in the bed."

Bull couldn't put that off by saying he wanted to check with Pat, as she'd suggested the same the afternoon before, but he still wasn't sure it was such a good idea. "Thought you were a little cool on that," he said.

"Seeing you and Pat kissing a minute ago warmed me up to the idea real good," Johnny said, and bumped his hip against Bull's. "Unless you don't want to," he added with a frown.

Was everything following that conversation about promises going to be that loaded? It was going to make Bull tear his hair out if so. "I wanted to yesterday," he said, then realised that implied he didn't want to today, and snapped, "Yes, all right?" and stomped off to the shower.

There wasn't enough hot water in the tank to stay in for very long, but Bull made the most of it, and took his time shaving after, so he only caught Johnny on his own way out the door.

After that, Bull had the house to himself, and not really much in the way to do. He wished he enjoyed reading like Pat did. The idea of lying on the couch with a book had some appeal, but he'd always found seas of printed words more of a struggle than a relaxation. He'd already done most of the handy work the house needed, but hadn't Johnny said something about the lawn? Bull went down to the basement, where there was an old push mower, and took it apart in order to sharpen the blade. That ate up an hour, and actually mowing than raking the lawn lasted another, at which point Bull was back to having nothing to do.

How had he filled his hours in Michigan? Al hadn't been able to come over every day after work or on every weekend. Mostly, Bull had found chores and makework, gone for walks in the park, slept as much as he could, anything to shake off the feeling that was a void opening up in front of him, deep and dark as the Atlantic, and ready to swallow him whole.

While he was putting the lawnmower away, Bull took a rummage through the little half basement to see what else of use there could be. It was mostly moving boxes, with one area set aside as a workbench and a place for Johnny's roofing tools. Pat's washing sink and line took up the rest of the space. It was a good little home, but small, smaller still with Bull in it now.

Bull shivered, not liking the cool dark of the basement. He wished he didn't keep feeling this creeping certainty that someone was watching him, even when his rational mind knew it was just his imagination. It'd faded in Austria, when it had been safe, but come back with a vengeance since Michigan. He knew that no one had followed him, no one even knew where he was, other than Johnny and Pat, and now Bill and Frannie, and they could all be trusted. Bull thought about that old blues piece about trying to outrun the devil, but shook his head and went upstairs. He milled around a little before settling on the couch to think.

Bull's Ma was looking for him, Bill had said. What had Pauly told Aunt Anne? Bull could only assume it was the worst version of the truth, but there wasn't much he could have said to paint it any better. When you got down to it, the truth was that Bull had done something none of his flesh and blood would ever be able to find it in their hearts to forgive, at least not unless he gave up that part of himself, and promised them to never take it up again. Even then, Bull doubted he'd be able to go home again without risking another licking.

It was a strange thing. He'd left Arkansas on his own steam, not especially planning to find his way back there. He'd felt a bittersweet ache when he'd decided that, but much less powerful than when he'd left the first time at sixteen. But now that he couldn't ever go back, the ache solidified into a tight ball of grief deep in his gut, and he didn't know if he'd ever be free of it.

Ma was looking for him, said she was worried about him, and Bull didn't know what to do about that. He couldn't stand the thought of leaving her thinking of him wounded and alone, who knew where, surviving who knew how. He'd put her through enough of that with the war. Johnny had said that he could send a letter from any city in C&O's reach, let her know he was okay, but not where he was. It seemed like a good idea, but at the same time Bull didn't think it was enough. A note like that would just make her worry more, and the idea of being cut off entirely chilled Bull to the bone.

He knew that they'd never take him back, but what if something happened that Ma needed him to know? He didn't want to put it on Bill to be a relay point for his mail, and if it came down to it, Ma working her way through his war buddies would just stir up more trouble. What if she wrote to Major Winters?

Winters would want to know _why_ Bull was missing, and the man had the tenacity to find out, too. Bull thought he'd rather die than have Winters rebuke him. Bull'd had a lot of bad officers over the years, but Winters had always been kind to him, had told Bull he was proud of him, had treated him with an avuncular kindness at his worst moments. Like most of Easy, Bull had promised never to let his trust in them be misplaced. Causing a scandal by turning up a queer and then vanishing would likely disappoint Winters down to the bone.

Bull considered the promises he'd just made, but didn't think that writing to his mother with Johnny's address would affect any of them, and he wouldn't be telling her other than that they were friends, which she already knew. Johnny and Pat's marriage would shield them from suspicion, or he hoped it would. Better to handle this quietly in the family than risk questions.

There was stationary in the desk in Johnny's bedroom, and Bull stole a sheet of paper and an envelope before going to sit at the kitchen table to write. He tapped the pen on the table and considered what to say. It would be best to keep it as short as possible. There wasn't a hell of a lot to it, anyhow.

In the end, he wrote:

> Dear Ma,
> 
> Mrs. Gaurnere says you wrote. Sorry to worry you. I'm OK. Didn't get hurt too bad, and am better now. What Paul says is true. Or true nuff. Sorry you had to hear it. I know you don't know why I would do that and I can't explain it but ain't like to change. Sorry. Means I can't go home, won't be welcome. I wish it was different, but it ain't.
> 
> I ain't figured what I'm gonna do yet. Right now, I'm staying with John Martin. He was my platoon Sgt, and a good friend. Him and his wife Patricia are letting me rent a room. I have a new job, and I might stay here a spell. I will include my address here so you can find me if you need me. Please don't tell no one else where I'm at. I don't want to bring Mr. & Mrs. Martin no trouble.
> 
> In my heart I wish I could make you know how sorry I am.
> 
> Your son,
> 
> Denver.

Bull folded the paper in three, forcing crisp lines by running his thumbnail over each fold. His hands were shaking, but not so bad that he couldn't get the paper into the envelope paste the flap shut. He wrote the address of his family home in firm, blocky printing, pressing hard so the shake didn't come through. He got up and put it in his jacket pocket to take to the post office later.

From there, Bull stood in the entrance hall and wondered what the hell he was going to do next. He still had hours yet before Pat got home, and he didn't think he could face the thought of rattling around her house that whole time, not if he was going to be in the kind of mood she and Johnny would want him in. Johnny'd said he wanted Bull and Pat in his bed at the same time, and Bull sure wasn't going to turn that down, but at the same time, if anyone touched him while he was in this much of a temper, he was sure he'd sure plain shake to pieces. He needed to clear his head, and he needed to mail this letter before it burned right through his jacket pocket.

Thinking about an afternoon exploring the capacity of the bed, Bull decided that he was going to need a few things for that as well. He might as well combine the trip. Finding his hat and jacket, he set out for the nearest pharmacy.

Even a few weeks in, it still felt strange to be able to lock and then unlock the front door of Johnny's house as if he lived there. He picked up his work keys when he punched in, so the single house key was the only thing in his pocket most of the time: such a small piece of brass for something so precious that carried with it so much trust.

Letter mailed and supplies acquired, Bull stopped to pick up some groceries on the way home, and ended up getting back barely a minute before Pat came in from her half-day at work.

She kissed him the moment she saw him, and as Bull held onto her, he realised that he was going to get kissed every time one of them was near him, for as long as this might last. He didn't know if he could stand how the idea of that filled his chest with warmth. He pulled her tight against him, and decided that if all he was getting were moments, he was going to make the most of this one.


	3. Chapter 3

"Did Johnny say anything about this afternoon?" Pat asked. They'd stopped kissing, but they were still standing in the hall, Pat's head against his chest, and Bull thought he'd be pretty happy to stand like that for the rest of the day. Or he would except for the memory of what Johnny had hinted at before heading to school.

"Uh, said something about the three of us," Bull said. "He can't seem to bring himself round to the word 'sex' so far."

"Yeah, we're working on that," Pat said, laughing against Bull's shoulder. "I'll try get all my work done before he gets home, then."

She spread her books out on the kitchen table, an indication that she didn't want Bull's company, and Bull wandered into his room. He settled on a nap, then when he got up another shower. Bull took care to wash his body completely, and shave as close as he could. He'd bought the things to clean his ass out, and used that, the feeling strange after so long not bothering. Al hadn't really cared, and Bull had mostly been on top there anyway.

He dressed in pants and t-shirt but nothing else, and padded out towards the kitchen, where Pat and Johnny were talking in low voices. He felt ashamed to eavesdrop, but did it all the same; he couldn't seem to help himself.

"...isn't a good idea," Johnny was saying.

"You saying that because you're afraid of him, or afraid for him?" Pat asked with that needle-stick precision of hers.

"I ain't neither," Johnny insisted hotly, loud enough that Bull would probably have been able to hear him in the shower. "I ain't!"

"Denver's more than proved he can look after himself."

"Sure," Johnny agreed, "and that's fine, it's just... I don't know, Pat. It's not like I don't know that, and I know that he'll be okay, and he'd sure as hell resent it if we started babying him."

"I'd like to see you try," Pat said, and her confidence in Bull buoyed him.

Johnny sighed. "All I'm saying is Bull's got a hell of a lot more to lose, and we need to be careful, all right?"

"You want to tell me what you think that means?"

"I wish I knew," Johnny muttered, almost too softly for Bull to make out. "I just worry about him, is all."

"You can't fix him. _We_ can't fix him."

"He ain't broken!" Johnny paused, and Bull could almost see Pat's raised eyebrows. "Not any worse than I am, anyway, or any of the rest of us. He just..."

"You just worry," Pat finished, and she sounded far more affectionate than mocking this time. "I worry about you too, you know?"

Johnny laughed. "Christ, I hope so."

Silence followed, and what Bull expected was kissing. He came in then, and leaned against the kitchen doorway and watched them. He really never was going to get tired of that picture.

"You just planning to watch?" Pat asked, and Bull shrugged.

"Could be I am." He hoped he wasn't. It wasn't that it felt strange to plan for sex in advance, but something about standing in Johnny's kitchen hoping they'd ask to take him to bed felt off balance.

They exchanged a look, both smiling, and then as one pushed back their chairs and started towards Bull. "Come on," Johnny said, "let's go."

"Move out?" Bull asked, mimicking the tone of a snapped order, and Johnny grinned at him. Pat rolled her eyes.

"I'm not taking the 101st Airborne to bed with me," she said, but she was also already unbuttoning her dress. She had a loose black thing with red flowers on it, that looked like it was mostly worn for comfort and ease of undressing. Johnny was already down to his shirtsleeves, and was pulling those out of his pants as they walked. Pat made it to the bed first, and sat on the edge in her bra and panties. Johnny had gotten down to his pants by then, and they were both looking at Bull, who was hesitating in the doorway. It was almost exactly a day since he'd stood there with both of them on the bed, but Pat had been crying then, and Johnny had been spinning some impossible line about how they could all just be together and, whatever happened, Bull absolutely had to stay.

"All right?" Johnny asked. He'd kicked his pants off and was wearing just white underwear, his cock already hard under it.

Bull hummed. "If it's all the same, I'd rather not take my shirt off," he said. The t-shirt covered the worst of the bruises, and Bull didn't want to deal with anyone looking at them just then. He didn't want to be a thing for Johnny and Pat to fix.

Pat opened her mouth to say something, and Johnny kicked her in the ankle. She winced and wrinkled her nose at him.

"As long as you take your pants off," Johnny said.

"That I can do." Bull started to unbutton his fly, and Pat and Johnny did him the favour of starting to kiss again rather than watching him. By the time Bull made it to the bed, the only piece of clothing between them was his t-shirt. Pat moved over until she was in the middle of the bed, and Bull circled to get in opposite Johnny.

Johnny was still kissing Pat, his hands drifting up and down her ribs while hers were buried in his hair. Bull hesitated, not knowing where to start. He wanted to touch both of them, everywhere, possibly all at once, but he only had two hands, and didn't want to startle them. Pat let go of Johnny's hair long enough to grope across the bed for Bull, holding her hand out palm up. He took it, and she dragged him in to put his hand over her breast.

It seemed like as good a start as any, and Bull stroked his thumb over her nipple until it hardened, and ran the knuckles of his other hand down the curve of Johnny's spine at the same time. He couldn't tell which of their soft cries of pleasure were from his touch, and which were from each other, but it didn't really matter. Bull lay down beside them and replaced his hand on Pat's nipple with his lips. He was pretty sure the way her hips lifted off the bed was his doing that time.

"Good thinking," Johnny murmured as he lowered his head to her other breast.

"Oh Lord," Pat moaned, and threaded her fingers through both their hair, while her hips thrust at nothing. "You don't know how many times I've thought of this."

Bull had some idea. He rolled his tongue over her nipple and let his hand drift down over her belly. He found Johnny's already there, and they both continued down to cup between her legs. Bull could see that Johnny was looking sideways at him, almost challengingly. There wasn't really enough room down there to both touch her at once, even with her legs spread, so Bull backed up to stroke her stomach while Johnny started to do something with his hand that made her cry out and push her chest up into their faces. She was making a lot of noise, and instinctively Bull lifted his head and caught her mouth with his, muffling her cries. He kept stroking her stomach and sides, feeling the tension run up through her. His cock rubbed lightly against the blanket, but most of what made Bull's blood heat was the sounds she was making, and the way sweat gleamed on her skin as she responded to their touch.

He kept kissing her, even as her screams subsided into whimpers, and Johnny urged every bit of pleasure out of her. She was making soft, little moans, hardly louder than breaths at the end. Pat clung to both of them, one hand still in Johnny's hair the other wrapped around Bull's neck to keep him in place, until she'd had enough and batted at Johnny's head to get him to stop. Johnny did, laying his head on her breastbone and letting her pet his hair. He was flushed and breathing hard too. The lift of Pat's thigh hid his cock, but Bull imagined he was as hard as Bull was.

"You liked that, huh?" Johnny asked.

Pat twisted her mouth away from Bull and said, "Let's just do that all day."

"Really?" Johnny asked and looked pointedly down their bodies.

Bull thought he'd be pretty happy just lying there and bringing Pat off over and over again, making a project of learning all the sounds she liked to make, but he did feel some fellowship in terms of Johnny getting left out. With Pat lying sated underneath them, Bull expected that Johnny would slide into her, and go from there, but instead he was looking Bull up and down, his gaze stopping on Bull's full cock.

"I want to see you ride him," Johnny told Pat, and she hummed in appreciation, also taking in Bull's body as he lay on his side next to her. She reached up and shoved lightly at his shoulder, and Bull obliged by falling onto his back.

There really wasn't a hell of a lot of room on the bed: Bull's shoulder was touching Pat's, while the other was uncomfortably close to falling off the edge of the mattress. Meanwhile, Johnny only just had enough room to kneel on the other side of Pat. Bull moved his hips more towards the centre of the bed so she'd have room to kneel astride him, but Pat wasn't getting up. Instead, she was resting on her side with Johnny spooned up behind her, looking at Bull.

Bull had some notion that he must look a little silly lying there with his legs spread willing to be taken, dick jutting up from under the hem of a sweat-soaked white t-shirt, but neither Pat nor Johnny were looking at him like they thought it was funny. Pat ran her hand down Bull's arm until she could link her fingers to his, and squeezed his hand.

"You're very handsome," she said, and how much she clearly meant it made his throat tighten. It wasn't something Bull heard a lot—"big" and "strong" and other less savoury words tended to come up more often—and he didn't know how to respond to it. "You think so too, don't you?"

Bull would have expected Johnny to make a joke about it, and maybe he would have if it hadn't been Pat asking. "Yeah," Johnny said, voice filled with tenderness, "yeah, I think he is too." He reached over Pat's shoulder and stroked Bull's cheek with his knuckles, and then took Bull's chin and tipped his face up to get a better look. "My best guy."

The feeling that rose up in Bull was such that he had to squeeze Pat's hand and blink a couple times before he could manage to say, "Gosh, Johnny, I was already going to let you screw me."

Pat sighed faintly, and Johnny said, "Really?" in a tone of some interest.

"Wait your turn," Pat said, and rolled over to straddle Bull's waist. She put her hands on his shoulders at first, but moved them when Bull couldn't keep the grimace of pain off his face. He was really looking forward to what he'd be able to do when he finished healing up. Pat looked unhappy, so he reached up and cupped her breasts with his palms, lifting them towards her chest. He pinched the nipples lightly, and she gasped and arched her back to push her chest into his hands.

Bull's cock brushed her ass every time she moved, and he wanted to take her hips and pull her down onto him, but made himself wait and see what she would do. Pat knelt up, folding her arms behind her head as she leaned back and shifted until his dick rested against her cunt, then grinned at him and sank down. She let her own weight carry her down, even as she bit her lip and rolled her head back.

Bull was having trouble breathing, and kept biting the inside of his cheek, and waiting for her to finish settling onto him. His hands were spread wide across her breasts, her nipples dark between his fingers. It felt wrong to have such big, rough hands all over her delicate skin, looked like one of those pictures that mixed things up.

Beside him, Johnny cursed softly. Bull tore his eyes away from Pat, still sinking ever so slowly onto his cock, her cunt gleaming where it stretched around him, and looked at Johnny. He was lying on his side watching them, not touching himself like Bull would have expected from a sound like that, just lying there, with his cock dark and painfully hard, pointing towards Pat and Bull.

When Bull looked back up to Pat, she was also watching Johnny, her mouth curved up in triumph. Bull couldn't look away again. He let his hands fall to her hips so that he could see her whole body above him, from the black hair between her thighs, over the full curves of her stomach and heavy breasts, to the arch of her neck and hands tangled in her own hair. If one of those goddesses from old paintings had stepped down to Earth and decided she wanted to ride the hell out of Bull, she wouldn't look any better than this.

If Bull tried to say that, he knew it'd come out all wrong, and Johnny wouldn't be able to help laughing at him, so he kept it to himself, and hoped some of his admiration showed in his expression. Pat started to lift off him, and he pulled her up a little, helping her rise off his cock. He was already gleaming from her slick, and the slide back down was faster this time.

Bull could tell she wanted to ride him rough and fast, but without bracing on his shoulders, was going to need him to help with the leverage, so he lifted his hips as best he could to thrust into her as she came down. Pat opened her mouth as though she were crying out, but the only sound she made was a soft "Oh," as her ass smacked against his thighs. Her breasts bounced and swayed, and Bull didn't know where to look.

They found a rhythm together: Pat rising slowly off as he lifted her, then slamming back down onto his thrusting hips. Bull wasn't used to thinking of her as wanting it so hard, but from the way her head was tossing and her hands clenched into fists she seemed to be enjoying it. Even though he couldn't bring himself to look away, Bull could feel Johnny's eyes on them, hear him moan slightly each time their bodies came together, as if he were the one Bull was fucking.

"She, uh, she likes it when you grab her ass," Johnny offered, and again Bull wondered what it felt like to watch the woman you'd promised your life to messing around with someone else, someone you'd trusted with your life. From the way Johnny kept moaning in pleasure and offering advice, Bull wasn't sure it felt that bad at all. Next, Johnny told Bull to run his nails down her back, which made Pat scream and clench down on him, then to lean up and take her breasts in his mouth, which wasn't really possible with the angle they were working on.

In the end, Bull slipped two fingers into her folds to stroke her off, and grabbed her ass with his other hand as he used the power of his body to lift them both and keep the movement going. It'd lost any real cadence, with Pat twisting on his fingers and clenching down and sometimes rising up a little on her own. Bull moved his fingers faster, rolling them across her clit, and she rocked her body back and forth to speed him up, pushing down harder on his hand.

Every time she shifted—every time she breathed—her cunt tightened around him, or rode up a little, and sent another wave of lust rushing through Bull. He wanted to get that thrusting drive back to finish inside her, but everything she did felt too good to focus on any one thing long enough to bring himself off.

Pat was praying softly as he stroked her, head thrown back so her hair swayed behind her. She ran her hands up her own breasts, pinching the nipples harder than Bull would have dared, and panted in open-mouthed abandon. Each time Bull rolled his fingers over her, she made the little "uh" sound in a slightly higher pitch, until she was nearly screaming as he touched her. Pat stiffened, arched her back and settled down onto him, the tense muscles of her thighs relaxing all at once.

As she slumped back down, Bull finally, dizzyingly came. He let out a sharp breath, tensed, and then felt that perfect rush of release into her. His vision turned red and faded until the only thing that he seemed to be able to focus on was Pat looking down at him, face flushed dark and gleaming with sweat, smile still triumphant.

"Oh, Sweet Jesus," Bull whispered, which is what he thought she'd been saying earlier. It covered just about everything he could think to mean: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication.

Pat leaned forward, half sliding off his softening cock, and started to kiss his face like she was licking the salt off it: wide, wet kisses all over his forehead, cheeks and jaw. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and for the first time Bull wished hadn't left his shirt on. He wanted to feel her skin against his. He let go of her ass and ran his hand up her back.

"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he told her, still feeling awkward, but less so than if he'd called her a goddess.

She stopped kissing him and held his face between her hands, studying him as if she were trying to tell if he was serious or not. Evidently she decided he was, because she smiled at him and said, "You're very sweet."

"I tell you you're beautiful all the time," Johnny objected. "You never call me sweet."

Pat laughed and climbed off Bull, right off the bed in fact, using a wad of tissues to clean herself. "You do tell me," she said, "but you saying it is like, I don't know, the sun rising in the east: I've come to rely on it, and it'd be a bad thing if it stopped, but it's not..." She looked down at them, her hands on her hips, her expression thoughtful. "I don't always take the time to give a sunrise the attention it deserves."

"Nice save," Johnny said, but he sounded touched. "And you are beautiful."

Bull felt like he could lie right there drift off to sleep in the sound of their affection, but he'd promised Johnny, and he did want the feeling of being screwed. It'd been a long time, and he'd missed a little. Besides which, he wanted to give Johnny that, if he'd take it, show him that he could have any part of Bull he wanted. He rolled over so that now he was lying in the middle of the bed and tucked his arms under the pillow in front of him. His side brushed against Johnny's chest, and he could feel the tip of Johnny's cock rubbing against his hip. Johnny really had been very patient.

"Aw, shit, Bull," Johnny muttered. He rested his hand on Bull's shoulder for a moment before reaching up to scratch his fingers through the short hair above his collar. "I don't got no objections, but you know that I don't have a damn clue what I'm doing, right?"

"I can suck you off, if you don't want to," Bull said. He wanted to do that too, though he had more of a notion or kneeling at Johnny's feet while Johnny braced against the kitchen counter. "Or I can tell you."

The bed dipped as Pat sat on the edge of it. She stroked down Bull's spine, over the curve of his ass and down his thigh. "I'd like it if you told him," she said.

Somehow, Bull hadn't really factored in Pat watching all this happen, though it'd been implied in the invitation into their shared bed. He hoped she wouldn't find it disgusting or degrading, or anything that would make her think less of Johnny for engaging in it. It was one thing to say that you didn't believe what people said about queers, and another to watch one man sodomise another. Still, she didn't have to stay and watch, and they'd all said they wouldn't do anything they didn't want to.

"Gotta learn this eventually," Johnny said, but he didn't sound as sure of it as he probably wanted to. It could be easier to teach by being the active partner, but Bull didn't think Johnny would be comfortable with that, maybe he never would be.

"There's some slick in my pants pocket," Bull said, and waited while Johnny went to find it. Pat was still petting his back, which felt nice. Bull wished he could just lie there and let them look after him. He was feeling awfully tired of making choices. "You have to use lots of it. Not enough, and you can hurt someone real bad."

Pat made a soft sound of disapproval, but at least she didn't ask if Bull knew that from experience. She squeezed the back of his neck and stroked down his spine with her thumb.

Johnny was kneeling on the bed at Bull's hip, seemingly stuck, so Bull shifted so that he was half kneeling with his legs spread wide to make the idea a little more clear. When Johnny still didn't touch him, Bull started to wonder if this had all been a mistake, too much to ask, but after a near-decade of hesitancy, he felt Johnny's rough hand on his ass. He stroked over the curve a couple times, squeezing down lightly, then slid his fingertips between Bull's asscheeks. Bull sucked in a breath when Johnny touched his hole. He was shaking with anticipation, and maybe nerves too.

"I just..." Johnny started, then let the question dangle.

"You haveta put the stuff on your fingers, then put your fingers inside me," Bull said. He was glad he didn't have to look Johnny in the face, but was pretty sure that the flush heating his face had spread to his neck and shoulders too.

"Okay." Johnny sounded dubious, but a moment later Bull felt cool lube against his asshole. His whole body twitched at the temperature, and Johnny went still, the tip of one finger on the rim of Bull's hole. Bull heard him take a deep breath and then he pushed his finger in.

The lube eased the way, and Bull tried to relax. He'd felt fingers sliding inside him many times before, but this felt different, new in a way he hadn't anticipated. He'd never done this with someone he already knew well, and though he'd been to a few parties with a number of people were having sex, he'd never felt so intensely watched. Kneeling this way—with Johnny on one side of him and Pat on the other, his legs open and his cock just dangling down, while Johnny fingered him—felt more exposed than stripping for an army medical or anything else he'd done. He should have taken his damn shirt off. His heart started to race and his skin tingled, intensifying the feeling of Johnny's finger lightly circling his hole.

"You can, uh, you can go harder," Bull muttered. "Feels better if you ain't so soft about it."

Johnny made a dubious noise but started to push his finger in and out a little faster, pressing at the sides of Bull's hole. That did feel better, especially as Johnny added more lube. A shiver ran up Bull's spine as Johnny pushed his finger into the last knuckle and twisted his hand in a circle. Bull clutched the pillow tighter and felt his toes curling in pleasure.

"That's more like it," Pat said, and stroked down Bull's spine again. "See he likes that."

"Okay," Johnny said, sounding encouraged. "Okay." He pressed a second finger inside Bull, starting to stretch him a little, and making Bull moan as the calluses on his fingers scraped past the sensitive skin ringing his hole. Bull flexed his ass, clenching down on Johnny's fingers to increase the friction, and Johnny sucked in a surprised breath. He added more lube, so much that it was starting to run down the insides of Bull's thighs, tickling at the hairs there. "How do I know when I've done enough?" Johnny asked.

Bull couldn't think of another answer besides, "It'll feel like you can fit your dick in there," so he said, "I'll tell you."

"Sure," Johnny agreed. He seemed to be enjoying how much of a reaction he was getting out of Bull, because he kept twisting and thrusting with his fingers, setting off little sparks of pleasure all through Bull's body. Finally, he managed to hit the place inside Bull that turned the sparks into a flame licking at his skin from the inside out. Bull clenched tighter and rocked his hips to push his ass back onto Johnny's hand.

"Yeah, that's good," he murmured.

Pat had been drifting her hand lower and lower down his back until now it rested on the hem of Bull's t-shirt. He heard her take a breath and then started to cup and squeeze his ass even as Johnny's fingers worked in and out of it.

"Shit," Bull grunted even as his body seemed to move on his own, his ass rising as he spread his legs wider. The idea of Pat touching him too felt filthy, but some part of him clearly wanted it. "Patty," he whispered.

Johnny had three fingers as deep as they'd go now, stretching Bull out like he hadn't felt in months, since the last desperate time he'd fingered himself until he came, but it was Pat's soft fingertip circling the rim of his hole, touching the line where Bull's flesh met Johnny's that made Bull muffle his cries into his pillow. She idly circled back and forth, as Johnny kept thrusting into Bull, an impossible promise in her touch: she'd take him too.

"I'm ready," Bull said between gasps, needing to feel more. He wasn't hard again yet, but his whole body shimmered with pleasure at their touch. "Johnny, please, you gotta..."

"Hey, hey, I've got you," Johnny said, and Bull sighed in relief at not having to decide what anyone needed to do. He felt the bed shift as Johnny moved between his legs. "Shit," Johnny muttered, "gonna warm this stuff up first next time," and Pat chuckled. Then he was holding onto Bull's hip with lube-smeared fingers and slowly pushing his dick into Bull's ass. He grunted and stopped, the head of his cock just inside Bull's ass, and for a moment they all sat still, the sound of Johnny's panting breaths rasping through the air

Bull squeezed his eyes closed, tears soaking into the pillow and made himself relax for Johnny, accepting him into his body as he started pushing in again. He moved so slowly that Bull could feel every vein in his cock, would almost swear he could feel Johnny's heartbeat. Pat was still caressing the edge of his hole even as it stretched to take Johnny in, her finger teasingly moving between Bull's skin and Johnny's. Sometimes, she ran the smoothness of her polished nails along his skin, and sometimes pressed her fingertip inside him, stretching him just a little bit further open even as Johnny's cock filled him.

"Please," Bull cried as he felt Johnny's hips touch his ass, but he didn't know who he was begging to do what. He tried to steady himself, but Johnny pulling out of him ever so slowly seemed to knock the breath out of him too. He held onto the pillow and waited to be filled again, wishing he could let go and take it, not keep getting dragged up by anticipation.

"Shhh," Pat murmured, and her hand left his hole. Bull whimpered at the loss, and whimpered again when she started to run her nails over his balls. Johnny pushed back into him as he did, moving faster this time, and more sure. "Do you like this?" Pat asked.

"Yeah," Johnny grunted, and Bull was glad he'd answered so that Bull didn't have to. "Yeah," Johnny said again when he was settled inside Bull. "Christ, he feels good."

Bull whimpered at the praise and at the drag of Johnny's cock inside him as he pulled out again. The feel of Pat almost casually fingering his balls, made him ache for more, not quite for discomfort, but for her and Johnny to keep showing him they wanted every part of him.

For such a long time, Bull had wanted to feel Johnny inside him—to be touched and taken like this, or any way that Johnny would offer, all the while knowing that he'd never offer—and now here he was, those impossible fantasies come to life and made even better by having Pat there too. Bull had never thought that they could know what he was and so much as stand to look at him, but not only were they looking at him, they wanted him too, Johnny's cock was thrusting in and out of him, and Pat's hands wandered over his body touching and caressing him everywhere.

Bull rocked forward with each of Johnny's thrusts, holding tight to the pillow even as he thought how nice it would be if he had Pat in front of him with her legs spread, and Johnny's dick driving Bull's face into her cunt. She was feeling up his chest, hand moving under his sweat-soaked shirt to caress his stomach then pinch his nipples. The twist of pain shot through his body making his cock start to stiffen again.

Pat and Johnny joined their hands over Bull's dick, stroking lightly as Johnny's pace picked up. Johnny was breathing hard, hips snapping against Bull's ass, as his fingers dug into his hip, but it was the slow, deliberate drag of joined fingers on his cock that made Bull start to cry out at every touch. He could feel the roughness of Johnny's fingers, and the smoothness of Pat's, the dig of Johnny's grip, the line of Pat's fingernails dragging down the centre of his chest.

It felt like too much to stand, too many sensations, and too many feelings, but Bull couldn't do a thing to stop any of it either. He could only hold on and let them use him as they would. Johnny was saying something, but the words faded behind the blood pounding through Bull's ears as he started to drift on the wave of sensation surrounding him, until he couldn't tell the pinch of Pat's nails from the stretch in his ass from the pressure on his cock dragging him over the edge into a second orgasm.

Bull floated away, and when he came back to himself he was curled on his side with Johnny wrapped around him from behind and his face pressed against Pat's hip as she sat at the head of the bed. His face was wet with tears, his body with perspiration; he could feel Johnny's come in his ass, mixing with the lube as it trickled down his thighs, but Bull wasn't sure what else he felt.The world was vague and distant, and so was his own body, all in a way that he didn't think he ever had while sober.

Pat was stroking his hair. It was nice.

"Like it when you do that," Bull murmured, and Johnny huffed a sigh of relief and kissed his shoulder.

"Had me worried for a minute," Johnny said. "Felt like you went somewhere, and didn't take us with you."

"Yeah, maybe," Bull agreed. "Weren't bad though."

Pat scooted down until she could curl up against Bull's chest and he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He liked having them both pressed against him like that, so close they could all be one person.

He kissed Pat's hair until she turned her face up and he could kiss her properly, sighing against her lips. He could be in the centre of a sea of sensual affection and kindness, and he didn't know if he was floating or drowning, or if he cared. Pat kissed the tears from his cheeks, and his forehead like a benediction, and Bull felt like crying all over again.

"How you doing?" Johnny asked.

Bull shook his head. He had no idea. "Can we stay like this?" he asked, "just for a little while?"

"Sure," Pat told him, and Johnny's arms tightened around his chest.

They lay silently for a while, their skin cooling even as their bodies kept each other warm. The light through the curtains made the room feel soft and close, a safe place.

Eventually Johnny yawned and stretched, before muttering, "We do need a bigger bed."

"We need a bigger house," Pat countered, and Johnny sighed.

"Yeah, guess we're going to, was hoping I could put that off a while."

Pat groped until she found Johnny's hand and closed her fingers around his palm, both of them resting against the bottom of Bull's ribs. "We probably can for a while," she admitted, "Maybe a year. We should start thinking about it though."

Bull didn't want to think about leaving this little house, the first place he'd found real happiness since the end of the war, but more still he didn't want to think of Johnny and Pat having to move, taking on a bigger mortgage even, because of him. Or maybe it was just because of the baby. He supposed they'd have more than one, and that would need more space. Thinking ahead seemed impossible just then.

They lapsed into silence again, and Bull stared over the top of Pat's head where she'd snuggled against his shoulder, and tried to put together everything that had happened in the last few hours. He hadn't thought it was possible to want Johnny and Pat more than he had a few days ago, before he'd had a chance to be with them, but it seemed like every time he touched them, all he wanted was more, that only having them near could sooth the ache inside him that he'd barely admitted existed before now.

"What do you think about dinner?" Pat asked finally.

Johnny laughed, breath gusting against Bull's shoulder. "I think all three of us need a shower."

"We need a bigger shower," Pat said.

"Ha, there's no end to it now," Johnny said. He half climbed over Bull so that he could kiss Pat, then rolled out of bed.

"You better not use all the hot water!" Pat called after him, and sighed at whatever gesture Johnny made back at her.

Bull supposed he should follow, but wasn't quite ready to let go yet. He already missed Johnny against his back, didn't think he could stand not having Pat curled up in the circle of his arms.

Pat waited until the shower started up, and then asked in a low voice, "But are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just..." Bull didn't know how to put what he'd felt into words. "Being with you... I couldn't..." he stopped and sighed. "It weren't bad," he concluded, wishing he had a better way to put it. "You ain't done nothing I didn't want."

"Okay," Pat said, she toyed at the hem of his t-shirt, and her bare leg rubbed up and down between his. "You've been quiet."

Bull nodded. "Guess so."

Pat made a small dissatisfied noise against his chest, but didn't try to pull away.

"I liked feeling you touch me," Bull said, trying to tell her something she'd like. "I mean, always, but 'specially when Johnny was taking me. It made me feel, well, special, I guess."

"You are special, Denver," Pat said. "I wanted to show you that." She kissed his throat above the collar of his t-shirt, and breathed in deeply. He felt her hands ball into firsts and her shoulders tense. "God, I'd like to punch that cousin of yours right in the face."

Bull snorted. "I'd lay my money on you in that one," he said, though he didn't especially want to think about what would happen if Pat met Pauly and his inevitable crew of thugs. "That's all over now, though."

"Hmm," Pat murmured, but didn't say anything to contradict him.

"It is," Bull said again. He almost regretted the letter he'd sent to his his mother, or at least including this address, but he thought it was much more likely that she would cut him off clean than that she'd tell all and sundry of his cousins where he was, and even if she did, Pauly had won. He didn't need to come after Bull now.

The shower stopped, and Bull kissed Pat's hair before letting go of her. "Don't use all the hot water," he said, and nudged her towards the edge of the bed.

"We need a bigger hot water tank," Pat muttered as she got up, which was one point that Bull definitely agreed with.

Bull rolled onto his back, spread out across the bed, which really was too small, and tried to put his thoughts in order at least so far as the end of the day, but he still felt distant and a little disconnected.

Johnny walked naked and whistling "The Way You Look Tonight," and kicked through the pile of clothes on the floor before giving up on the lot and going to the chest of drawers. Bull watched him dress, admiring, as always his compact strength and the absolute confidence he had in his body. It was nice to get to openly leer at him now, instead of sneaking glances and then feeling guilty for looking at a friend like that. Johnny turned and let his gaze linger on Bull's body, his mouth tugging up into a smile.

"Could get used to seeing that," Johnny said and leaned over to kiss Bull.

"I guess I could get used to being here," Bull admitted. He already had, really, and knew it was dangerous, for all of them, but didn't think he could break free of it on his own now.

Johnny grinned like Bull had given him the sky and all the stars too. He sat on the edge of the bed and took both of Bull's hands in his. "I'm so damn glad I don't even know how to tell you," he said. "Ever since you showed up, all I wanted was for you to feel like this could be your home too. You deserve to have a home, somewhere people'll look after you."

Johnny sounded close to tears with the intensity of his belief, and Bull sat up and touched his shoulder lightly with his forehead. He didn't want to get Johnny dirty again, but also couldn't stand to look him in the eye for a moment longer. "It is, Johnny, I swear," he said. "You've been... you've both been wonderful. There's nothing you could do that would make it better for me." He knew that saying that he felt impossibly selfish for letting them give him that much would not go over well. That seemed to be enough anyway. When Bull looked up, Johnny appeared entirely pleased with himself.

"Looking at you like that, all I wanna do is come back for another round," Johnny said, lips touching the shell of Bull's ear. "Christ, you're sexy."

"I wouldn't object," Bull answered, tipping his head to kiss Johnny's cheek. He didn't know if he'd survive any more sex that day, but if he didn't, he'd at least die happy.

"So, there's probably not a lot of hot water left," Pat said as she wafted in on a cloud of flower-scented steam. "Sorry."

She was wearing that little blue robe again, the one that Bull thought only existed to show off her legs, and he was seeing the appeal of just staying in the bed forever, especially as opposed to a lukewarm shower. He liked having the mess they'd made together smeared all over his skin, anyway.

Pat had bent over and was tossing things in the laundry basket. Both Johnny and Bull tipped their heads to the side to stare at her ass as the robe rode up over it. She finished by tossing Bull's pants at him and saying, "Go. Wash. I want to change the sheets."

"All right, I'm going," Bull said and pulled himself away from Johnny.

The shower wasn't as bad as it could have been. The water wasn't outright cold, which made it warmer than quite a few in the army, and it still smelled like the flowery soaps Pat used in her hair. He turned the water off while he soaped his body, studying the healing bruises and abrasions from the beating, and a few newly forming bruises from Johnny's hold on his hips. It felt good to know that Johnny had marked him, and that he could renew those marks any time he liked, while the old ones faded into memory.

His ass was slippery with come and lube, and Bull fingered himself briefly, remembering Pat's hands on him. He wondered if she would like to properly screw him some time, and though he'd keep an eye out for an appropriate object in case she did.

Turning the now marginally warmer water back on, Bull rinsed and then ended up staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, trying to see what about him they wanted badly enough to risk all their lives. He supposed he was handsome, as those things went, or decent looking anyway, but he couldn't see enough in that to make two largely sensible people lose their damn minds. Bull shook his head and looked away. It didn't matter why, now. They'd all said what they said, and Johnny was no more likely to voluntarily change course than Bull was, and he didn't have a sense that Pat was going to do anything but steer them into deeper waters.

By the time he got dressed, Johnny was studying, and Pat was in the kitchen cooking. Bull figured he'd make himself useful and get a load of laundry done, He mentally added a better washing machine to his list of things that Pat needed, and taking this one apart to his list of things to do around the house. Maybe that would keep him busy tomorrow until he had to go to work.

He wondered what the new everyday they might drift into would look like. He didn't think they'd be able to have quite that much sex every day, but it'd be nice once and a while. Bull thought he might like to sleep curled up next to one or the other of them once and a while too.

The bed was a problem, but Bull decided to say that he could use a little time to himself now and then, which wasn't even untrue. This would be the last night he was home when Johnny and Pat were sleeping anyway, and Bull was trying to get better about only fretting about things right in front of him.

He should rig up a better fan for the basement, too. It smelled damp from the drying laundry most of the time, and that would only be worse with constant baby diapers. The baby was definitely a problem that he was going to worry about later.

By the time Bull got back up, Johnny was setting the table, and Pat was plating up dinner.

Pat was talking about something that had happened at her uncle's company, and Johnny was offering commentary, not all of it useful. Bull ate and listened, and tried to work out a tally of how happy he was. It was nice to have someone to sit with at meals. Bull had grown up in a house full of siblings, and constant noise and jostling for attention, and he missed being able to hear voices around him.

"You're still quiet," Pat said.

Bull shrugged. "Not much to say, I reckon."

"Oh, let him be, Patty. He gets like that sometimes. He's listening though," Johnny said, grinning, and started to tell a story about Toccoa, and how a lot of the guys had pegged Bull as a dumb hick, and ran their mouths off about it, only to find out much later that Bull had heard every word and planned retaliation accordingly. It was how he and Johnny had gotten to know each other, actually, as Johnny was working on his supply lines even then, and Bull had needed all that tar.

"Though I been thinking about that," Johnny said as he concluded with how the entire company had gotten gigged, and it had absolutely been worth it.

"Sobel?" Bull asked at the same time as Pat said, "Tar?"

"Naw," Johnny waved them off. "I mean how well we worked together, right from the start."

"Reckon we did," Bull said with some pride. Johnny had been jumpmaster, and Bull had been push man, the leader and the one with the strength to make it happen.

"It's been strange since we got back," Johnny said. "Used to be I could turn around, and there'd be twenty guys backing me up, and now since I'm out, it feels like every man for himself. You know?"

"Yeah," Bull said. The army had not been all that different from a house full of noisy, nosey sisters and cousins, who you knew you could count on when it came to a scrap. "Can't say I miss the war, but..."

"Definitely don't miss the food," Johnny said around a mouth full of meatloaf.

"Don't miss Peacock."

"Don't miss being so far from Pat."

"Don't miss sleeping in foxholes."

"Shelling. I don't miss goddamn shelling."

They both fell silent for a time, and Bull knew they were both thinking of Bill and Joe and all the boys they'd lost in Bastogne, and before.

Pat was watching them, and Bull wondered how much Johnny had told her about what it had really been like over there. Probably not much. It didn't seem as though were a way to put it into words, and even if you could, who would admit to a woman that you'd spent the better part of two years terrified out of your god-damn mind, doing everything you could to survive because you'd seen how death didn't leave a man an ounce of dignity, and the idea of going out in a screaming bloody mess, pissing yourself from the pain was too much to stand. Everyone wanted to come home and say how brave they'd been, how it hadn't hurt a bit, and they were the same men as they'd been three years ago, even though they'd all hardly been boys back then.

Johnny shook himself loose first. "Anyway, I was thinking it'd be good to work together, you know?"

"I suppose it would," Bull agreed cautiously.

"Work on what?" Pat asked.

"I ain't figured that part out yet," Johnny said, which meant he had a pretty good idea of what he wanted, but wanted to present the whole thing as an unassailable plan once he'd worked out all the details. "Nothing now, anyway, with me and school and the baby on the way."

"Sure," Pat said, believing that as much as Bull did. "It'll work out. It'd be nice to have Denver off those night shifts, if nothing else."

Bull sighed. "I'll ask Mr. Wilson about it again," he said, but didn't feel terribly optimistic. From the talk around the yard, it would be at least a few months before one of the day shifts opened up, and Bull wasn't even a priority when they did. He was not, technically speaking, a family man, and fellows with kids tended to get first choice on better hours.

Johnny caught his eye and grimaced, and Bull shrugged slightly in reply.

"I could look for something else?"

Pat shook her head. "Let's stick with this for a bit, okay?"

"Sure," Bull said, but he didn't like the uncertainty of it all. It was all going to change quite quickly, with the school term ending, the baby coming and Pat leaving work around the same time. Bull had a notion that keeping his job was probably going to be better for everyone, but he wasn't that happy working nights either. He didn't feel like he saw the sun much more than he did when he'd been working twelve-hour days at the foundry. He couldn't tell if knowing that Pat didn't like it either made it better or worse.

"I'll figure something out," Johnny promised, and that at least Bull believed. He knew that he could count on Johnny's plans mostly working out, even if sometimes they needed a bit of luck and a nudge in the right direction.

"I figure I'd like to do something we could work on together," Bull said. He wasn't sure that twining his life even closer to Johnny's would come to a good end, especially if he had to move on eventually, but he couldn't deny that he wanted it. He wanted the companionship if nothing else, and to feel like he was being of use.

Johnny smiled at him, and Bull's heart glowed with pride.

There weren't a lot of things in life Bull wouldn't give up if Johnny would just keep smiling at him like that.

Pat was in an expansive mood after dinner and read aloud from her book. It was more goulish stories of murder and depravity, which weren't always to Bull's taste, but he liked listening to her voice. He lay on the couch with his eyes closed, listening to her voice flow over him, while Johnny sat on the floor at her feet. Bull would have felt guilty about chasing Johnny off his own furniture, except that he knew how much Johnny liked having Pat's legs wrapped around him. She was still wearing the black dress with the red flowers, and no stockings.

Bull slept alone again that night, and found that he did like having a little space to himself. He wondered if, before he'd gotten there, that Johnny or Pat had ever decided to sleep in the spare room for whatever reason, or if they'd always felt they had to share the one bed. How did a marriage work?


	4. Chapter 4

Bull spent the next day taking apart the washing machine and re-rigging the fans in the basement. He was reasonably sure that when he was done that the laundry would be easier for Pat to manage, if he wasn't around to help out. He had a nap in his own bed when he was done, thinking that he'd need the sleep for the night to come: his first night shift since all this had happened.

Johnny and Pat both kissed him on his way to work, and for most of the walk there, Bull felt as though he were floating on clouds. It was better than it had been—the dull, sometimes brutal work of being a night watchman—because he knew that he was earning money to help support his new little family, and because he knew that when he got back, Johnny and Pat would be getting up, and they'd kiss him, and it would feel like a home.

Bull returned to the smell of coffee and frying eggs, and did indeed get kissed as he came in. He thought that he could kiss one or the other of them, but especially both of them, until the day he died, and it still wouldn't have been enough.

After their breakfast and Bull's dinner, when Pat had gone to work, Johnny lingered in the kitchen, watching Bull do dishes and rather than looking at the books he had stacked on the corner of the kitchen table.

"What you thinking of?" Bull asked, eventually, setting the frying pan aside and turning to Johnny.

"Oh, nothing much," Johnny lied, and smiled at Bull when he shook his head and gave him an incredulous stare. "Well, I was thinking about what'd feel like to have your mouth on my dick, but..."

It was like that dog Bull had heard about where you rang a bell and it drooled. Bull's cock started to harden and he found himself clenching the edge of the counter. "Nothing much?" he echoed.

Johnny shrugged, but it didn't comment further. He didn't have to.

Bull took a breath, dried his hands and set the towel aside, asking, "So were you figuring on me kneeling under the table, or doing it with you leaning against the counter?"

"Uh," Johnny said, clearly not having gotten that detailed in his plans, but then rallied. "I'll take it how I can get it, but I liked having you in my bed."

"All right." Bull stored his kitchen sex fantasies away for later—alongside the one of Johnny in that armchair in the living room, with Bull kneeling at his feet and Pat watching from the couch—and started towards Johnny's bedroom. He'd just gotten inside it when Johnny caught his wrist and pulled him down to kiss him.

Three days in, and Johnny kissing him was showing no signs of becoming stale. Bull loved the way Johnny insisted on a response, how he'd make little dissatisfied hums if Bull wasn't kissing him back, and how he always rubbed his body up and down Bull's as they stood together. Every time, it seemed like Johnny wanted a little more, to be a little closer, and Bull was always happy to oblige him.

Johnny was already dressed for the day in a neat blue suit and grey tie, and Bull hadn't gotten out of his rough work clothes, which made kneeling between Johnny's legs as he sat on the edge of the bed feel even more deliciously wicked, as if Johnny were trade bringing Bull home. The way Johnny stroked Bull's hair and smiled down at him made that scenario seem less likely, though. either way he was already hard when Bull opened his fly.

He licked a stripe up Johnny's cock to start with, listening carefully to the grunt of pleasure Johnny made in response. Bull was determined to learn Johnny by heart, figure out what he liked best by feel and sound alone, until he could make him feel like no one else ever had. Johnny was holding onto Bull's shoulder, not grabbing his hair, but felt his fingers tighten as he dipped his head to take Johnny's balls between his lips. He liked the way Johnny kneaded his shoulder muscles and tensed as he tried not to scream in response to Bull's gently sucking mouth. A stifled moan escaped like steam from a kettle when Bull's tongue probed at the divide between Johnny's balls.

"Goddammit, Bull," Johnny hissed, even though Bull hadn't done anything except scrap his stubbled cheek against the bottom of Johnny's dick as he kept pulling his sack into his mouth. Johnny had just showered, and tasted faintly of soap and only a little sweat, but still Bull wanted to lick him all over, to learn the taste of every part of him. As Johnny spread his legs, Bull pressed his face more deeply between them, probing with his tongue until he found the soft place behind Johnny's balls. Johnny gasped and dug his fingers into Bull's shoulders, and Bull grinned.

He liked being able to do this to Johnny, to make him lose even this much control of himself, and to know that Johnny hadn't seen anything yet. He wondered, as he rolled Johnny's balls around in his mouth, and Johnny's cries now filled the room, if he and Pat could take Johnny apart the way the two of them had done to Bull. He thought they probably could, and toyed with the idea of it even as he started to lick back up the length of Johnny's cock. Bull wrapped his lips around the head, rolling his tongue over it to get a foretaste of Johnny's come.

Bull had his hands on Johnny's knees to hold his legs apart, and Johnny's own hands moved to his as Bull started to slide his mouth down Johnny's dick. He moved down slowly, listening as Johnny held his breath to keep from whimpering, then gasped when he couldn't any more. Before he had more than a third of Johnny's dick in his mouth, Bull drew back just as slowly, and glanced up at Johnny when he groaned in disappointment. He stopped with just the tip in his mouth, waiting to see what Johnny would do, his tongue idly lapping his tongue over the head.

"Never knew you were such a fucking tease," Johnny grumbled, but despite the way his hips tensed and released and his hands clenched over Bull's, he didn't actually do anything to hurry Bull up or force his dick down his throat.

Bull smiled as well as he could, his lips tightening around Johnny's shaft and his eyes crinkling, and then he dropped his head back down. He went deeper this time and then kept going. Johnny started to swear when his cock hit the back of Bull's mouth, and fell into a tense silence when Bull swallowed around him. Bull could feel Johnny's dick filling his throat, and pushed back the urge to choke. He was running out of breath, but could last a while longer. He knew how the tightening of his throat would feel as he swallowed, how his head would look pressed right against Johnny's stomach, taking all of him in.

"Bull," Johnny gasped, but couldn't say anything else. He was panting hard, his fingers tightening and relaxing over Bull's as he held on. He tried to lift his hips, but there was nowhere to go. Johnny squirmed, and Bull could tell that he wanted to force more action, but he kept his hands overtop of Bull's on his knees, and grunted with the effort of holding himself back.

Bull kept that up, drawing back slowly until he could toy with the tip of Johnny's cock, and then sinking all the way down again. He could feel Johnny slowly spinning apart above him. He was trying to hold himself steady, but Bull's mouth was too much for him. He sounded like an engine that kept choking out, the grind of trying to hold his breath followed by a harsh gasp, then a pause, and a low whine of pressure. Bull considered what it would take to pull him over the edge. He started to suck in pulses as he drew back, and that, finally was what made Johnny curse his name and lift his hips off the bed in a failed effort to fuck Bull's mouth. Bull simply drew back and rode with him, only sucking Johnny back down when he fell back towards the bed.

"God, Bull, please," Johnny whispered, and that had been all Bull wanted to hear. He quickened his pace, not going as deep, but bobbing his head up and down Johnny's cock the half dozen times needed to pull him right over the edge. Johnny didn't say anything as he came, just groaned and slumped back onto the bed. Bull stayed with him, sucking lightly until Johnny was finished, then crawling up to lie beside him.

"Holy fuck," Johnny muttered. "That was... fuck."

Johnny's legs were still hanging off the bed, but Bull didn't bother to sort him out, just lay with his body curled around Johnny's so that he could watch him as he came back to himself.

When he did, he climbed up next to Bull and started unbuttoning his shirt. "You don't need to..." Bull started to say, but Johnny shut him up with a kiss and kept going. Johnny licked into Bull's mouth, determined to taste his own come, and that in itself was filthy enough that Bull subsided back onto the bed and let himself be undressed.

Johnny didn't try to take his undershirt and shorts off, just stripped away his outer layers and rolled Bull into the covers before crawling in with him.

"Don't you have classes?" Bull asked.

"Yeah, in a while," Johnny agreed, hand finding its way inside Bull's shorts. His fingers were more sure than his mouth had been a few nights before, easily jerking Bull off as he watched his expression. Bull closed his eyes and let Johnny's hands draw him easily up towards climax. It felt so assured, this exchange of favours, Bull already in Johnny's bed and nearly naked, Johnny not even asking what he wanted, just correctly guessing.

Bull looked back at Johnny, finding his creased forehead and intensity of focus entirely charming. He liked being the centre of Johnny's attention, the one he was trying so hard to please. Bull reached over and caressed the side of Johnny's face. He'd just shaved, and his skin felt unbearably soft under Bull's touch. The pillow under Bull's head had a trace of Pat's flowery shampoo. Bull watched Johnny's serious green eyes, and breathed in Pat's scent, and allowed pleasure to fill him to overflowing.

Studying Bull's face, Johnny sensed the moment before he came, and caught his come in a handful of tissues. He kept stroking Bull's dick, resting the other hand on his side under the edge of his undershirt, until Bull stilled and blinked at him.

"Come here," Bull said, and Johnny rolled over to lie with his head on Bull's shoulder. Bull stroked his back and enjoyed the warmth of their bodies pressed against each other and the blankets snug around them. Bull could feel his heartrate slow, and his body drag him towards sleep, even though he really should get up and brush his teeth and move back into his own room.

"You been with a lot of guys?" Johnny asked out of the blue.

Bull guessed the question had something to do with his proficiency at sucking Johnny off, and something to do with Johnny being a nosy son of a bitch. "A few, I reckon," Bull said. "Most of 'em before the war. Stuck to girls while I was over there, and there was just the one, after. Well, mostly."

"Huh," Johnny said, and Bull thought he might let it rest there, but of course that wasn't Johnny. "Do you like that? Going with all different people, I mean."

"Didn't have a lot of other choices, or didn't seem like I did, anyhow." Bull tried to think how to describe leaving home as a teenager to go work in another state, then living in company barracks. He'd fallen in with the queer set there, who'd taught him most of what he knew about sex and how to survive in the world, but not much about romance. It was less achingly lonely that way, and when you were that young, the pleasure and danger of it all was very exciting even as it made him ashamed. He'd kept up those habits since, and they'd served him well, but after he'd come home, he'd wanted more than those fleeting exchanges of pleasure. He didn't think that Al had wanted anything more than an easy screw, but it'd seemed safer to stick to one person. "It's just how it was," Bull concluded.

"That what you wanted?" Johnny persisted.

He wasn't quite asking if that was what Bull still wanted, but he was coming close. "Was then, I guess," Bull said, which seemed the simplest way to put it. "It ain't no more."

Johnny snuggled closer to Bull's side, arm tightening possessively across his chest. "I never been in love with more than two people in my whole life," he said. "Ain't sure I could share you. Other than with Pat, anyhow."

"You won't have to," Bull promised. "This here's more than everything I ever wanted."

"Good," Johnny said with finality, and then laughed when Bull did.

"Don't you have to go to school?" Bull asked, though he didn't want Johnny to leave.

Johnny groaned. "Yeah. I do." He didn't move when Bull rolled out from under him and got up. "Where you going?"

Bull shrugged and settled in for an argument. "Brush my teeth, then to bed."

"In your room." Johnny rolled out of bed. His clothes were a little rumpled, but probably no worse than most students. In fact, Bull thought he looked a damn sight better than most students, and the bedhead and loosened tie only underlined that.

It was hard to say no to a man who'd just had your dick in his hand, but Bull still said, "Was thinking my bed, yeah."

Johnny opened his mouth to protest, then seemed to think better of it, and just said, "Well, this is the nicer bed, but you can be an idiot if you want."

It was less of a fuss than Bull had expected, so he wasn't surprised when Johnny followed him into the bathroom and combed his hair into order as Bull brushed his teeth. It felt a little like barracks life with both of them sharing the tiny space, brushing into each other as they passed, though Johnny's hand managing to find its way to Bull's ass was new. He couldn't say he objected.

"You know," Johnny said as he put on his jacket, "Patty was saying that it'd be a nice thing to come home to: you passed out in her bed."

Bull laughed at the obviousness of it. "Pat was saying, was she?" Bull grabbed Johnny's shoulder to hold him in place long enough to straighten his tie, breath catching at the flutter of Johnny's thoat against his knuckles. It still felt strange not to tuck the end in between the second and third buttons. "Nothing to do with what you want?"

Johnny grinned at him, unashamed. "Didn't say that." He kissed Bull on the cheek, and turned to go, leaving Bull standing in his underwear not sure what he wanted to do.

In the end, the way Johnny had put it about Pat finding him in _her_ bed was enough to tip Bull one way rather than the other, as Johnny presumably had known it would. Bull wondered if Johnny knew the depths of the waters he was sailing when he talked about people belonging to each other. Probably not. That had never been Bull's particular interest, either, but it seemed to be more common among the queers than elsewhere, or maybe that was just where people talked about it.

As he settled into Johnny and Pat's bed, Bull wondered what Johnny would do if set loose on the kind of community Bull had come up in. He shook his head and let it slide away. Johnny would take it all too much to heart. For all his scowling appearance of misanthropy, Bull had never known a man who felt so deeply. He'd married his grade school sweetheart, for Christ's sake, had only been in love with two people in his whole life, he'd said, like being in love was what was important in all of it.

This bed was nice, at least. It smelled like them, and like sex, and didn't have that one spring that stuck out and jabbed Bull in the ribs if he rolled over the wrong way. Maybe it wouldn't be giving up that much to sleep here the days he had night shifts.

He wondered if Johnny had found a sideways way to tell Bull that he loved him, or if there'd been someone else who was the second person. Bull thought it was more likely to be him, and wished that made him feel something other than that things were tumbling too fast to hold onto.

* * *

Bull woke sometime later when Pat crawled into bed next to him. She was wearing that threadbare nightie and a kerchief over her hair like she did at night, but there was enough light coming in through the curtains that it couldn't be later than one in the afternoon. Bull made an inquiring noise, and Pat shushed him with a kiss on the corner of his mouth.

She turned so that her back was facing Bull, and he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled them close, kissing the back of her neck. She fit just perfectly into the curve of his body, nicer than Johnny in some ways, because of all the softness to her. Bull took a deep breath, drawing in the smell of her hair and perfume, then slept again.

He woke several hours later to the feel of the baby kicking against his palm. His hand had migrated from the bottom of Pat's ribs to the centre of her belly, but otherwise, he didn't think either of them had moved. It was early enough that he could probably stand to sleep for a few more hours, but at the same time, it felt more indulgent to lie awake and do nothing.

Bull made small, circling motions on top of Pat's belly, and thought about how much a person had to trust another to fall asleep next to them, more than having sex with them, in some ways. Bull had sucked off, jerked off, fucked and been fucked by a lot of people over the years, more than he could name even if he cared to try, but he absolutely knew the names of everyone he'd cared for enough to sleep by him. Most of them had been Easy Company men, soldiers watching each other's backs on liberty as much as on the line. Al mostly hadn't stayed over, but he had the odd time when they'd both had a little too much to drink, and other than that there'd been a scant handful before the war.

Now he had Pat and her baby in his arms, at least one of them sound asleep, and he couldn't quite figure out how that had happened. Johnny had said that Pat had particularly wanted to come home and find Bull here, presumably so she could nap with him, and if she weren't lying right there, solid and warm and so incredibly soft in his arms, Bull wouldn't have believed it. He'd been desired before, or at least lusted after, usually by guys who wanted to be pushed around and thought he was the man to do it, but never to the extent of someone willing to risk their whole world so that they could lie in bed together and sleep.

They had, by Bull's reckoning of Ohio law, earned themselves about sixty years in prison so far, or that went for him and Johnny. Bull didn't know what the courts would do to Pat, if this all came out. They probably wouldn't send her to prison for letting her husband fuck another man, but Bull had no doubt any judge in the state would declare her unfit to be a mother and take the baby away. The papers would be all over it, too, a situation like theirs: more interesting than the usual queers getting murdered in the park.

"Something wrong?" Pat asked, voice full of sleep.

Bull realised that he'd become tense and rigid as his worries carried him away. He took a deep breath, and made himself relax again. "Didn't mean to wake you," he said, and kissed the side of her neck and started to rub her belly again. He'd been getting hard when he'd woken up, but his anxiety had settled that down.

"It's all right," Pat said around a yawn. "Should get up soon anyway."

"Yeah," Bull agreed. She probably had work to do, but he wished she wouldn't go quite yet. He wished even more that he hadn't managed to ruin his enjoyment of these quiet moments with her.

Pat showed no signs of actually getting out of bed, and this time Bull didn't move first. "You know," she said after a while, putting her hand on top of his over her stomach, "you could keep going with that."

Bull smiled against her neck. "That so?" he asked. "And which way do you want me to go?" He started to slide his hand up towards her breasts.

"Not a bad start," Pat said. She kept her hand on top of his, but didn't try to guide him, so Bull cupped one of her breasts and squeezed lightly until she rubbed her ass against him as she squirmed at the feeling.

Bull kissed her neck, then moved the collar of her nightie aside with his teeth until he had access to the whole shape of her shoulder blade. He put his hand on Pat's other breast, and hummed as she moaned, their voices resonating like struck strings. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over her nipple, the cotton of her nightie dragging across her skin, and each time she moved, she rubbed her ass against him. Bull thrust gently, his cock hard again and pressing out against his shorts.

"You could go lower, too," Pat said, and Bull obligingly swept his hand down her ribs, over her belly, to where the hem of her nightie lay across her thighs. He stroked up and down her leg, loving the feel of her smooth skin, until he finally followed her thigh up, pushing her nightgown out of the way until he could reach under it and between her legs. Pat rolled back a bit to make it easier to open her legs for him, but Bull still felt like he was forcing his hand into the heat of her tightly pressed thighs. He grunted as he found his way to her clit, trying not to think what it would feel like to rub his cock between her legs the way he sometimes did with men.

When his fingers finally found their way between her folds, rubbing over her clit, Pat winced and gasped. She wasn't yet slick enough for big rough hands on her tender places to be enjoyable.

"You ain't," Bull started to say, but stopped short, not wanting to criticise. He withdrew a little, cupping her instead. "Didn't spend enough time getting you started, is all."

Pat made a small, disappointed noise, and Bull felt like a heel for not doing this right. He got the impression from the first few times that she took a while to warm up, and he should have remembered that and taken more time about it. He kissed the back of her neck again, then leaned forward to nibble her earlobe, all while slowly rubbing his palm over her.

"Tell me something dirty," Pat said, which Bull understood was trying to be encouraging, but actually caused him to forget every filthy thought he'd ever had. None of them would have been right for her anyway, they were all just common trash, not fit for Pat to hear.

"I ain't much good at that kind of thing," Bull muttered, glad that he was behind her so that she couldn't see his face.

"Well tell me something you like to do," Pat amended. She put her hand back over Bull's and pressed down harder.

Bull sighed faintly, setting the small curly hairs at the back of her neck up into a whirlwind. "That's the thing of it," he said. "I like everything, anything, so long as everyone has a good time. 'Specially with you and Johnny, I don't think I mind what we do 'cause it's all so good; just being with you is good."

"Yeah?" Pat asked, and she sounded pleased. She kept rubbing herself against his hand and then back against his dick, and even if she wasn't turned on enough, Bull certainly was getting there.

"Yeah," Bull agreed, but then couldn't think of how to elaborate, which was clearly what Pat had been fishing for.

"Well, what do you want to do next time we're all together?"

Bull was pretty sure that if he said he liked anything, she would get out of bed right there and deal with getting off by herself in the bath. He thought about it for a moment. It'd seemed easy enough to build little fantasies in his mind, but when actually asked, it was all either too crude or too sentimental to commit to. Finally, he offered, "I wanna watch you and Johnny together."

"What do you want Johnny to do to me?" she asked, voice teasing.

It was easier to think about that. "Wanna see where he touches you, what makes you feel good. Wanna see if he's started licking you out yet, see you leaning against the bead of the bed with his face pressed between your legs."

Pat moaned and ground against his hand, and Bull could feel her getting slick now.

"You'd both be naked," Bull continued as he started to slide his fingers back into her folds. She wasn't quite ready yet, but she was definitely getting there. "You look so good together: Johnny's so strong and handsome, and you're beautiful, full of curves and your skin seems like it glows. I can't keep my hands off either of you."

He could see the tip's of Pat's ears flushing, but by then her skin was darker all over, and her body rocked against his hand seemingly on its own. "Mmm," she said. "But what's Johnny doing?"

"Once he's finished licking you, he, uh..." Bull hesitated, now having rather too many ideas, instead of not enough. "You roll over, and he slides into you from behind, goes in real deep, and takes you slow."

"Yeah," Pat said, and rolled her head back so that she could catch him in a sideways kiss.

"Your tits keep swaying back and forth each time he pushes you forward," Bull continued rocking his own hips forward to make his point. He thought he might come just from rubbing his dick against her ass, but wanted to bring her off first. "And he's got his hand down between your legs just like this," he added and slid forward until he could trace her entrance with his forefinger. "And he's telling you how good you feel, how beautiful you are, how he wants you every minute of every day, and he'll keep wanting you so long as you both live."

"And what are you doing?" Pat asked.

"I'm just watching," Bull said, but she didn't answer, so he said, "I'm lying on the side of the bed, watching Johnny push into you, and knowing what that feels like. My dick's hard, but I'm not touching it. I want to come just from seeing you two together."

"And when we're done," Pat told him, "I want you to come over and lick me out. You two can trade off all day, if you want."

"We would," Bull promised, though he had to wonder if his mouth would be up to much after all this. Still, he liked the image of taking turns bringing Pat off, neither of them really amounting to much in the face of that. "I'd lick you, and you'd taste like you and Johnny mixed together."

"Oh," Pat was moaning now, each thrust against Bull's hand rougher than the last. He kept losing the feel of her clit, then finding it again and rolling his fingers over it as she bucked under his touch.

She didn't seem to need any more talk, and Bull was getting a bit breathless himself, so he pressed his face to her shoulder and focused on touching her until her soft, "Oh, oh, oh," pitched higher into stifled cries. Her voice stopped as she came, then settled into a long, soft moan.

"That's right," Bull murmured. "You feel so good. You're so beautiful."

Pat laughed and wriggled until she was facing him. She _was_ beautiful, with her round face gleaming with a sheen of sweat and her eyes almost black with arousal. She had a broad nose that was a little crooked, and wide, sensual lips, and Bull was pretty sure he could look at her all day, and never be bored. She kissed him, and he thought he could do that all day too.

Bull rocked forward against her, his shorts and her nightie in the way of even sliding between her thighs, but the contact still felt good. He huffed out a breath and took hold of her hip.

"Denver," Pat said, but not breathy like he wanted her to right now. She reached between them and stroked him through his shorts. "Been kinda achy all day, and I'd rather not..."

"Oh," Bull said. He let go of her hip, and then didn't know what to do with his hand, so he tucked his arm between them.

"I'm sorry," Pat said, and stroked him again. "I can do this?" She did sound sorry, guilty even, like she thought she should have to take Bull inside her any time he wanted. That hadn't been the deal.

Bull closed his hand over Pat's and lifted it away. "It's all right," he said. "I can take care of this myself."

"No, I..." Pat started, then smiled. "Can I watch?"

"Uh." Bull had been thinking of getting up and going into the bathroom, but the idea of lying there with Pat looking at him sent a shiver across his skin. He'd never much listened to all the stuff about how jerking off would make you go blind or insane, and if it was a sin, he'd done far worse by now anyway, but it still felt dirty, kind of selfish in a way. It wasn't something a lady should see, even if the same lady had already had her hands all over Bull while Johnny fucked him.

"You don't have to," Pat said after he'd spent too long hesitating. "I just like looking at you."

"Always thought you was the smart one," Bull said, but he rolled onto his back and pushed his shorts down enough to get his dick out.

Pat pulled the covers away from him, making a nest out of them for herself and leaving Bull bare. He felt like her eyes had some kind of burning power, like in a monster flick, and they were licking flames over his skin.

"Go on," Pat whispered, her voice low and throaty, "show me."

Bull was already most of the way there. A few strokes from Pat before would have done it, but now he wanted to draw things out. Instead of tipping himself into release with a couple fast hard pulls, Bull reached between his legs and toyed with his balls. His hand still had a little of Pat's slick on it, not really enough to make the slide any easier, but just knowing that turned him on even more. He let out a breathy sigh and raised his hips, thrusting into air. He stared at the ceiling, not wanting to look at himself or at her. Bull's other hand lay at his side, and he thought about what would look good for her for a moment before running his hand up his chest under his undershirt, pushing it back as far as his stomach. As he caressed himself, imagining his hand was Johnny's, he started to stroke his cock, going slow at first. Each pull sent a rush of pleasure across his skin—little quakes of heat and sensitivity made more alive by knowing that Pat was watching shudder through him. Bull rubbed at his nipples and bit his lip, rolling his head on the pillow.

He knew he must look shamefully wanton, but that's how she wanted him to look. He exaggerated the rise of his hips, thrusting into his hand like she was still riding him, and let cries he usually muffled flow from his lips.

"Yeah," Pat whispered, and just the sound of her voice pushed him over.

He came in a flash of white, and for a moment felt blank, almost empty, before the feeling of his dick aching against the roughness of his palm and Pat's light kisses on his cheek brought him back. Bull lifted his head, and saw that he'd come all over his undershirt, which had needed to be washed anyway, he supposed. He wiped his hand on it and tucked himself back into his shorts. Something in his gut felt leaden and ashamed, but it wasn't too difficult to push that away when Pat was still kissing and caressing his face.

"You looked so good for me," Pat told him, and Bull felt like Major Winters had just pinned a medal on him.

"You know I'd do anything you asked," he blurted out, before he thought about how that sounded. They'd already talked about that.

Instead of disapproving, Pat knelt so she could lean down and kiss him full on the mouth. Her hair had fallen out of her kerchief, and cascaded into Bull's face, tickling his cheeks and filling his world with her scent. Bull rubbed up and down her back as she kissed him, and thought again about how nice it would be to touch skin to skin.

Pat dropped back, flopping onto the bed and sighing. "Should get up," she said, not sounding like she liked the idea a whole lot.

"You still achy?" Bull asked.

"Yeah," she admitted. "Getting off helped, but it feels like someone's kicking my spine. Wonder who that could be."

Bull rolled out of bed and stripped out of his undershirt, tossing it in the laundry basket and promising himself he'd actually do the laundry later. He didn't think about how he was showing off his back until he heard Pat's breath catch, and by then it was too late. It wasn't like Bull could ever go long without remembering what'd happened to him, but he did wish he'd heal up faster and not have that beating written over his body like a theatre marquee.

He didn't say anything, just walked out of Pat's bedroom in his socks and shorts, and put the kettle on for a hot water bottle. It had always made his ma feel better when she was pregnant with his little sisters. He dressed while waiting for the water to boil, and tried not to think about holding his baby sisters in his arms, when he himself had barely been big enough to carry them. Most of them were starting families of their own now, which likely as not Bull would never see.

It couldn't be helped. He'd known what he risked every time he lay with another man, and it should have surprised him when he'd had to pay for it. He was risking Johnny and Pat now, too, but he promised himself he'd be so careful that no harm would ever come of it. If it did, Bull would find a way to take it all on himself. Johnny would object, but he thought that Pat would let him do it for the sake of the baby.

It wouldn't come to that anyway. They'd be careful, and there was nothing inherently suspicious about a man renting a room in his buddy's house. Maybe it would be if he stayed for years and years, but they could work that out when it came to it.

He filled the hot water bottle and brought it in to Pat, who was still lying on her back staring up at the ceiling with an expression of discontent. He sat on the edge of the bed and put his hand on her stomach.

"You're an angel," she told him, tucking the bottle under the arch of her back and sighing like she'd just gotten into a hot bath. "Can you do my paperwork too?"

"Not if you wanna keep your job," Bull said. "You know I never had much head for numbers."

"Worth asking," Pat said, and sighed. "I keep thinking of more things I need to do, and all I want to do is lie here and listen to your voice."

"I can help with the rest of it," Bull said. "Been living on my own for a while, and I'm a good hand at housework. Never minded it like some fellows do."

"I know," Pat told him. She lifted her head to look at him. "You've already done a lot more than Johnny ever thought to put his hand to."

Bull frowned. He'd been thinking Johnny could stand to help out around the house a little more, past cooking breakfast and doing the dishes from time to time.

"Oh don't look like that," Pat said. "Johnny's Johnny, and you won't change him. He works hard. I wish..." She shook her head. "I should keep a better house for him."

That was probably one of those woman things that Bull was never going to understand. "Patty, if Johnny came home one day, and the living room rug was on fire, he probably wouldn't notice so long as he saw you first."

Pat laughed. "How the heck did he pass barracks inspections?"

"He had a real head for figuring out the least he could do to pass muster," Bull said. Johnny had been one of the few men in Easy who'd almost never gotten gigged for even Sobel's imaginary infractions. There just hadn't been much that would stick to him, and no one could look him in the eye and think trying to make it stick was a good idea. "He's..." Bull shook his head. "That's just how he was. Fought the whole war on his own rules."

"That was the only part I ever heard about," Pat said. She let her head fall back and folded her hands over her ribs. Bull tried not to stare at how he could see her nipples through her nightie. "Johnny's letters were full of stuff about whatever scheme he had going on, didn't seem to care if the censors saw, what you and Bill were doing, but you guys could have been over there building bridges for all he talked about the war."

"You know we couldn't say nothing," Bull said, but he knew that wasn't what she meant.

"I listened to the radio every day, trying to hear any mention of the 101st, had my mother sending me clippings from her papers," Pat continued like Bull hadn't said anything, "but I don't think it really meant anything until he came back, and he wasn't the same."

Bull wanted to deny that, say that Johnny was all right, but of course he couldn't and he didn't really have a point of comparison anyway. He'd never known Johnny before the army.

"Oh, don't look like that." Pat reached out and took his wrist, squeezing it lightly. "He's not... it's not like I don't want him any more, or that he hits me or something. But sometimes I look at him, and I see these shadows, and I try to imagine what would have left a mark like that, but I guess I'll never figure it out, and he won't talk about it."

"I don't reckon he can," Bull said, and Johnny was probably trying to shelter Pat from the worst of it, but she wouldn't want to hear that.

"Knowing that doesn't make me worry less," Pat told him, a hint of acid in her voice, but it was cover for the fear that they all had, a fear that the war had broken something deep inside that could never be set right again, and they'd spend the rest of their lives curled up trying to heal an impossible wound.

Maybe they would, at that, but Bull knew that Johnny wasn't going to let that stop him from living the best life he could, and loving Pat with every bit of his heart that had survived. Bull leaned down and kissed Pat's forehead, saying only, "Johnny'll be all right. You'll see."


	5. Chapter 5

Bull was just finishing up on washing the kitchen floor when Johnny came in from school, whistling "Heaven Can Wait," then breaking off when Bull put his fingers to his lips.

"Patty sleeping?" he asked.

"Lying down, anyhow," Bull said, setting the mop aside, "says her back hurts."

Johnny grimaced in sympathy, and headed for the bedroom without even taking off his jacket or hat. Bull heard low voices from the bedroom, and almost wished he could pry. Instead he left the kitchen so the floor could dry and went to sit outside in the afternoon sun. As he went out, he heard Johnny reading aloud to Pat, and wished he'd thought of that, though it wouldn't have done him much good if he had. Johnny didn't narrate as fluidly and vibrently as Pat did, but he had a good voice for it, and wasn't fumbling or halting like Bull would have.

Bull sat on the porch and smoked and enjoyed the quiet of the afternoon. He thought back to waking up with Pat in his arms, and how eager she'd been for his touch. Pat had said she liked looking at him, and had made sure Bull knew she wanted him. That more than the sex itself, more than the sun on his face warmed Bull right though. He liked, too, the way that he and Johnny could form a sort of team when it came to looking after things in the house, and making sure Pat was all right. Bull might not always know the best thing to do, but Johnny was there when he didn't. It was a relief to have that after all those months alone.

By the time Bull had made dinner, Pat was up again and looking a little better. She kissed Bull to thank him for cooking, and he held her close and tried to let himself relax and stop worrying. Johnny hugged Pat from behind, and all three of them stood there in a tangle of arms and kisses until Bull decided the food was getting cold and told them to go eat.

Pat looked a little pensive through the meal, but waited until Johnny was clearing the dishes to say, "Mom dropped by work this morning."

"Did she?" Though Johnny was standing by the sink with his back turned, Bull could see the line of tension running up his spine.

Pat sighed faintly. "She wanted to see how I was doing with the baby."

"Sure," Johnny said, and Bull couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

Pat folded her arms and glared at Johnny's back. "And she wanted to make sure we were still coming over for Easter."

"What'd you say?" Johnny asked, and now the tension had spread from his spine all the way across his shoulders. He still wasn't looking at Pat.

Bull stayed silent as the grave and tried to remember what either of them had said about Pat's ma. She called on the phone sometimes, and she and Pat seemed close, but Johnny had never said anything about her, and she hadn't been over in the weeks Bull had been there.

"I said we would," Pat said, and Johnny bumped his fist against the counter like it was that or punch through the window.

"What about Bull?" Johnny asked, and still wasn't looking and thus did not see Bull narrow his eyes at him.

Pat caught Bull's eye and shook her head slightly, as if he needed to be told to stay out of this one. "Well, she already knew that Denver's staying with us, and asked what his plans were. I said he didn't have any family in Ohio, so she said that of course Denver was welcome to come as well."

Bull had noticed that Johnny really did try not to use profanity in front of Pat, and he also noticed that this was testing Johnny's resolve on that point, but all he said aloud was, "Fine," and started to do the dishes.

Pat looked like she wanted to say something else to that, but decided this wasn't a good time to pick that battle, and just told him, "Dinner's at five on Sunday."

"Sunday this week?" Johnny asked, and Pat rolled her eyes.

"This is Palm Sunday, Johnny."

"Right," Johnny muttered, and let it drop again.

Bull was pretty sure that getting involved in any of this wasn't going to make it better, but felt compelled to offer, "I don't have to go. Don't mind spending the day by myself, never was real churchy, like."

To his surprise it was Johnny who said, "No, you'd better go. It's not like we can hide you in a cupboard and pretend you don't live here."

"Or that we'd want to if we could," Pat added, pressing down a smile.

It didn't seem to Bull that being hidden away and kept a special secret just for the two of them would end up being that bad, but he could see the practical argument against it. "I don't got much to wear," he said doubtfully. He almost wished he'd kept his Class As, instead of stripping the ribbons and selling them.

"Your grey suit's fine," Pat said, but he could see her plotting to do something about the frayed cuff.

Johnny lifted his hands like he'd just given up on an argument, spraying the counter with soap bubbles.

Bull raised his eyebrows, and Pat rolled her eyes, mouthing "later" at him.

Later turned out to be the next day, after Pat had left for work, which was the first time Bull had gotten one or the other of them alone since the argument after dinner.

"So what's the matter with Pat's parents?" he asked the second the door clicked shut.

They were in the living room, Bull lying on the couch and thinking he was going to go to bed pretty soon, and Johnny hovering by his feet.

"Nothing," Johnny snapped, folding his arms to glare down at Bull.

Bull had stopped taking looks like that from Johnny seriously about two days after he'd met him. "Sure does sound like nothing."

Johnny sighed and looked up at the ceiling in an apparent appeal to God, making that same hand raising gesture as he had in the kitchen the day before. "They just hate me, is all."

It wasn't that Bull couldn't image not liking Johnny—who was a cantankerous son of a bitch who always thought he knew best for everyone, wanted is own way, and didn't mind whose toes he trod on to get it, but he was also very good at putting his best face on when it mattered. It seemed like Pat's parents should have mattered enough for Johnny to put the effort in. "What'd you do to piss them off?" Bull asked.

"Fuck," Johnny muttered and dropped into a crouch next to Bull's feet, resting a hand on his ankle. "I ain't done nothing, except not be the doctor or lawyer they think Patty shoulda married. Goddamn lace curtain Irish, is what they are. Or he is, anyway."

Bull wanted to point out that it seemed pretty difficult to him to be disappointed in a man who'd risen as high as it was reasonable to go in three years in the army, and then immediately come home and both worked to support his family and started on a proper education, but he knew how family things could get. His own view of Johnny could hardly carry over to what Pat's parents had decided about him before he'd even graduated high-school.

"Well, they're like to love me," Bull commented.

Johnny snorted. "Oh yeah." He pushed his hand under the cuff of Bull's pants and ran his palm up his shin. "You don't have to go. I can make up some excuse or other."

"Kind of you," Bull said, shaking his head, "but I expect I'll have to meet 'em eventually. 'Specially if Pat's ma's going to be around when the baby comes."

"Yeah, of course." Johnny didn't sound very enthusiastic about any of it. At least they had a full week to get ready, and in Bull's case to try make his suit more presentable, maybe he'd work on that after his breakfast and Johnny and Pat's dinner.

In the meantime, he had a friend to cheer up, and a bed to get into. Bull pulled his legs away from Johnny and said, "How 'bout you come tuck me in, huh?"

Johnny smiled and reached down to pull Bull to his feet. When they were standing chest to chest, Johnny wrapped his arms around Bull's neck and started to kiss him. It took them a while to make it to the bedroom.

* * *

That afternoon, Bull got up to find no one there. He'd drifted off after letting Johnny fuck his thighs while jerking him off. He'd hoped to find Pat snuggled up against him again that afternoon, but Bull woke to an empty bed and an oddly empty feeling.

Bull frowned at his own assumptions. He'd been too quick getting used to Pat being there, one cuddle after years of sleeping alone was all it took, it seemed. Bull shook his head at himself and stretched and went to look for Pat. Her purse was next to the door, but she wasn't at the kitchen table or on the couch, or in the basement doing laundry, or even on the back porch.

It took Bull longer than it should have to check his own room, where he found Pat sleeping on top of his bed, a light throw pulled up over her legs. As Bull watched, she murmured in her sleep and turned her head to the side fretfully, her hand going to her stomach. Bull wished he felt confident enough to go comfort her, but he assumed if she'd taken to sleeping apart from him, she wanted to be left alone. Instead of kneeling next to the bed and stroking her hair as he likely would have done with Johnny in the same situation, Bull quietly closed the door and went to sit on the back porch to smoke.

He should probably find some kind of chore to do, maybe mending that suit, but he couldn't bring himself to it. He just sat there and smoked a fresh cigar right down to the nub, at which point Johnny came in and plonked down beside him, lighting his own smoke off the end of Bull's.

"Where's Pat?" he asked right off.

Bull hunched his shoulders and looked at the bare stub of cigar he had left. He supposed he could start a new one, but he didn't really feel like it. He should put this one out before he burned his hand. "Sleeping. In my room."

"Aw hell," Johnny muttered and got up. "She racks out in the spare room when she's had a bad day. Probably didn't think of it being yours now."

"Ah," Bull said. He hadn't considered the established patterns of the house, or how he might be disrupting them. Though he supposed it had worked out that he was sleeping in Pat's bed when she wanted to sleep in his. Johnny was already gone though, and at least he would know what to do to look after her. Bull stubbed out the cigar, and stayed where he was.

He'd been here like this just the afternoon before, and thought then that it was nice to have Johnny to lean on when he felt lost, but today felt different. Bull still felt oddly unbalanced, and couldn't put his thumb on why. Maybe it was just coming to expect one thing, and finding it wasn't to be found. Maybe Bull just didn't have a damn clue what he was doing, and was coming to understand that.

The three rules they'd come up with hadn't said anything about what to do when you weren't sure how you fit into a household, or if you should even be there at all. He wished it all was more clear, that he had some kind of map he could follow to any of this. If it was just Bull and Pat who were together, or even him and Johnny, they'd be everything to each other, and that would be that. Now he knew Johnny and Pat were married, one flesh in the eyes of God, or however that all went, and Bull was... what? Their lover? A convenience? He had no idea, and he didn't want to ask in case one of them changed their mind about how useful it was to keep him around.

That thought wasn't fair either. Bull knew they'd be kinder than that, and there was that first promise of talking things through. Unless it came to the police, the end of Bull's time here wouldn't be as sudden as his flight from Michigan.

Bull sighed. He didn't know why he had to be so tempermental about the whole thing, up one day and down the next. Why couldn't he just enjoy a good thing while he had it?

The screen door creaked, and Johnny stood in the doorway, holding it open. "Hey, Bull."

Bull got up and kicked the ashtray into the shade of the eve so it wouldn't get rained on. "How's Pat?"

"Still passed out," Johnny said. "She'll be gone for a while. Gets these headaches sometimes, especially since she's had the baby to worry about."

"I can make dinner," Bull said, glad to feel useful.

"She won't be up to much more than soup, I usually just make a sandwich or something."

Bull didn't think that sounded very appealing. Before he'd added himself to this little household, Bull had never thought much about what it would look like for a man to come home and not have his wife there to look after him. When Bull was little and Pa was still alive, Ma'd had had dinner on the table at five, come hell or high water. He'd been learning since it didn't always go like that, and was happy to help, or at least look after himself so neither of the others had to mind about him, but wasn't always sure when to offer.

"I reckon I can do better than a sandwich," he said, but maybe that'd been the wrong thing too because Johnny gave him a narrow look, and Bull wondered if it'd been taken as criticism of Pat's housekeeping. "I mean, if you want."

Johnny puffed out a breath, and went back inside. He waited for Bull to come in and for the door to be shut before he said. "I ain't been thinking much about dinner."

"You ain't?"

"No, I…" Johnny hesitated, chewing his lip. "I guess I been thinking about this for a while now, you know? But today, 'specially, it's just been kinda eating at me."

Bull took a breath and told himself that this wasn't any kind of hammer dropping. He reached out and touched Johnny's cheek, drawing his gaze up to meet Bull's.

Johnny nodded slightly to acknowledge Bull's implied support. "Look, if you don't wanna, that's fine, but, well, I guess I want to see what getting screwed feels like."

It was such a plain statement that Bull wasn't sure what to make of it, or if Johnny really meant it. He supposed he'd wondered if Johnny was going to ask him about this. He'd let Johnny screw him that one time, the only time they'd all been together, but not much else since. Bull supposed it was the kind of thing a man would want to know about himself, but he didn't like to think of Johnny having spent the day turning it over and over in his mind.

"You don't have to," Johnny added, when Bull spent too long letting things tick through his mind.

"If I didn't want to, I'd say so," Bull said, "Just thinking on the best way to go about it."

They were standing in the living room, and it seemed so odd to have the conversation there, out in the open, where Pat could just walk in. Bull still wasn't used to this part of things, where you just talked about what you wanted, and that was that.

"How complicated can it be?" Johnny asked.

"Depends what you wanted to do, I guess," Bull said, but he'd finally dragged his thoughts to the present point of conversation, and was laying out what they'd need to do. It was a Friday afternoon, and they had a couple hours in front of them, with Pat sleeping, they'd have that time to themselves. "I usually start by washing myself out, inside, if I'm gonna be catching."

Johnny looked less sure that he liked the sound of that, but gave Bull a little shrug that said he was up for whatever nonsense Bull wanted him to do. Bull wanted to tell Johnny that he didn't have to do any of this, that he'd be perfectly happy just to keep on doing what they'd been doing, and never be the one on top, but he knew that Johnny would take that as patronising, and it'd just key him up more.

"Take your clothes off, and I'll show you," Bull said, and Johnny grinned at him.

"Now that's the kinda talk I wanna hear."

Bull showed him, and Johnny made a face at it all, but seemed to know that they were one complaint away from Bull shying away from the whole project, and kept his mouth shut.

By the time they got to the bedroom, Johnny was completely naked and slightly damp, and Bull still had on pants and a t-shirt. Johnny kissed Bull and started to unbutton his fly, while Bull ran his hands up and down Johnny's back and grabbed his ass with both hands, pulling them together. Johnny had just gotten his pants open, and Bull's cock rubbed against Johnny's stomach.

After years of looking and not being able to touch, Bull still wasn't used to how easy this all was. He could just pull Johnny into his arms and have as much of him as he wanted. It seemed like something that'd be taken away at any moment, maybe it would be, but Bull planned to enjoy every minute of it he could get away with. He could feel Johnny's dick against his thigh, but felt even more Johnny moaning into his mouth as they kissed. Bull was getting blissfully used to all the noise Johnny made, happy to be able to read them like a cipher and know what he wanted next.

Bull nudged Johnny towards the bed, and he broke the kiss to crawl onto it, lying sprawled on his back with his arms and legs open, watching Bull finish taking off his pants and skivvies.

"Still not taking off your shirt, huh?" Johnny said as Bull climbed onto the bed to sit next to his legs.

"Still looks something awful," Bull said, feeling embarrassment crawl up his spine like wet fingers. "I just don't..."

Johnny leaned up and grabbed his wrist, squeezing it hard. "You can do what you like," he said. "Want you to know it won't bother me if you take it off, okay?"

Bull shook his head and leaned down to go back to kissing Johnny. It would bother him, and they both knew it. In a way it was gratifying, how furious seeing the marks on Bull's body made Johnny, but he didn't want to drag all that into the bedroom. Save that wearing the shirt just reminded them all of what was under it, and Bull was never going to forget for more than a minute or two anyway.

Kissing Johnny seemed like enough to distract him for now anyway. Bull leaned over him with his elbows planted on either side of Johnny's shoulders so that he could touch his face as they kissed. Johnny got his hands under the shirt and stroked up Bull's ribs and down over his ass and thighs and back again. Their cocks brushed together, and Johnny lazily rolled his hips to keep the contact going, not trying to get off, just enjoying the feeling of their bodies together. They could just do this: grind off against each other like they had before, slowly kissing and touching, it would be more than enough in Bull's mind.

But Johnny twisted his head away and asked, "You want me face up or down?"

Bull considered it, then lifted his shoulders slightly. "Whichever you like," he said. He wanted to be able to see Johnny's face to make sure he wasn't hurting him, but he knew that Johnny might want to hide his expression for the same reason, and Bull would be able to tell from his body language anyway. He thought he saw the same consideration cross Johnny's face.

"Wanna look at you," Johnny decided, and Bull nodded and kissed him. It still felt like a thrill every time Johnny or Pat implied they liked how he looked.

"Okay," Bull said and started to kiss his way down Johnny's body. He'd been trying to work out where Johnny liked to be touched, and lingered on his neck and throat, pressing his lips to the hollow below his ear, and then sucking lightly at his pulse point until he could feel the sounds of Johnny's pleasure vibrating through both of them. Johnny dug his nails into Bull's scalp and held him there, his leg coming up to rub his foot up and down Bull's thigh. Bull had been with guys who didn't do more than lie there like a post and tense up slightly when they got off, and Johnny's responsiveness and open appreciation was addictive.

Johnny had never seemed to care much about having his chest or nipples played with, but the sides of his ribs, especially right at the bottom where his stomach started was another matter. Bull nipped lightly at the skin there, wincing as Johnny's hand left his hair to clamp down on his bruised shoulder, but not slowing down. Johnny wasn't ticklish, but liked feeling the scratch of Bull's stubble contrasting the softness of his lips all across his stomach, down to the join of his hips and thigh. Bull licked across it the skin there, grinning as Johnny swore and clung on with his legs. His cock was standing up straight and proud from a tangle of dark hair, and Bull breathed lightly on it, enjoying the feel of Johnny shivering in response. He kept one hand spread open across Johnny's stomach and the other on his thigh to keep him in place, not wanting this to turn into Johnny fucking his mouth, and Bull getting distracted by that and not doing anything in the way of the slow screw Johnny had asked for.

It was easy to get distracted, though. Every time Bull ran his tongue up Johnny's dick, or kissed the side, or blew a stream of cool air across its skin, Johnny bucked against his hands and moaned, and told Bull he was good, so good, this was all Johnny wanted, keep doing this, please, please, please. Bull shifted his legs apart and tried to ignore how hard this talk was making him. Someday, he wanted to find out if he could come just from sucking Johnny off and being told he was doing well at it. For now, he wanted to do what Johnny had asked. He moved down, nuzzling at Johnny's balls. He took one between his lips, and licked at it, swirling the hair with the tip of his tongue. He'd already found out that he could make Johnny come just from this, and only lingered for a moment before moving down again.

Bull took Johnny's knees and spread his legs wider. Johnny didn't resist, but made a low huffing sound at the lack of dignity. Bull would make him forget that. He put his lips to the soft skin behind Johnny's balls and sucked lightly there like he had at Johnny's throat, drawing out a howl of pleasure. Bull was kneeling between Johnny's spread legs now, and Johnny dug his heels into the bed and pounded his fists into the mattress as Bull kept sucking and licking until the tip of his tongue touched Johnny's hole.

Johnny went still. Cautiously, Bull licked along the crack of his ass, but instead of moaning or praising him, Johnny sucked in a breath and stayed silent. Bull sighed faintly and crawled forward so that he was kneeling over Johnny again.

"You can just say," Bull told him. Johnny grimaced in response, implying that Bull should stop treating him like he was stupid. "Here, do you like my hand better?" He circled Johnny's hole with a dry fingertip, skin dragging across skin, and watched as Johnny's lips parted in pleasure. "Looks like you do," he commented, smiling, and got another glare, but that was hard for Johnny to keep up when Bull made a show of sucking his finger to wet it and then going back to touching him.

He stayed where he was, kneeling between Johnny's legs watching his face as he toyed with the rim of his ass, circling his finger around Johnny's hole, now slick with spit, and from time to time dipping his finger into the centre. He liked this position better anyway; every emotion flashed across Johnny's face in response to Bull's touch, and Bull felt his chest warm with the twinned pride that he could make Johnny feel this good, and that Johnny was letting him.

He'd put the tube of slick on the side of the bed, and opened it one handed now, pausing to slide a towel under Johnny's hips before pouring the stuff into his palm. He let it warm there for a moment. The pause made Johnny shift and bite his lip nervously, and Bull could feel his breath quickening in anticipation.

"You're all right," Bull said. "You know how this is done."

"Yeah, but," Johnny said, and looked down their bodies towards Bull's cock. Johnny shook his head slightly.

"I'd never hurt you," Bull promised, and Johnny glanced away, embarrassed at being so obvious. Bull couldn't think of anything to do besides showing Johnny that he meant it, so he spread the slick over his fingers and pushed the first one inside Johnny. "We'll go real slow, all right?" Johnny's gaze snapped back to Bull, wide eyed, and clearly not sure if he liked what he was feeling or not. He did seem to like Bull talking, so he kept it up, "You just try and relax now, and I'll do everything. You know how good I can make you feel, don't you?"

Johnny nodded, though he still had tension around his neck and jaw that Bull didn't like. Johnny was keeping his arms down and out of the way, and Bull wondered if he'd be more comfortable holding onto Bull's shoulders, but didn't want to suggest it. Instead he cupped Johnny's cheek with his free hand and stroked the arc from his chin to the hollow behind his ear slowly, matching the time of his finger sliding in and out of Johnny's ass. Bull wasn't going very deep yet, sticking to his first two knuckles and turning his hand this way and that to get Johnny used to the feel of something inside him. Bit by bit, Johnny relaxed under him. He kept his eyes fixed on Bull's, watching for his intentions, and didn't even flinch when Bull slid a second finger inside him.

"You're doing real well," Bull told him. "You feel good, nice and relaxed. I think you'll like the rest of this, if we just take our time."

It took a lot of sweet words of praise and slow slowly work for Johnny to finally completely relax and melt into the bed. He smiled when Bull started to touch his prostate, rolling his hips to amplify the touch, and again Bull thought about just keeping this up: touching Johnny until he came apart under Bull. But the slide of Johnny's ass around his fingers made the urge to sink his dick into him too strong, and besides, Johnny had asked. "Better hold on to me now"

Johnny curled his hand around the back of Bull's neck, and took his good shoulder with the other. His eyes said that he trusted Bull to do anything, but that slight tension was back again. Bull couldn't think of anything to do about that for now, so he coated his cock with the slick and started to press into Johnny's ass.

Bull wanted to close his eyes and let himself fall into the feeling of Johnny tight around him, the perfect hot slide into him, finally getting to feel this after so many years, but he didn't want to take his eyes off Johnny. He was tense again, and clinging hard to Bull, struggling to breath through the initial stretch and discomfort like he was keying his body up for a sprint across a field of fire. Bull rocked his hips a little, wiggling back and forth inside Johnny, and got a startled laugh out of him.

"Doing fine," Bull said. His hand had stilled on Johnny's cheek as he'd focused on entering him, but now he stroked it again and smiled down at him. "You feel real fine."

That was an understatement, but despite the perfect clench of Johnny's ass around him, and the way he kept shifting his legs and making it a hundred times better, the knowledge that it was Johnny, and that he was letting Bull do this to him was what made it so much sweeter than anything else. Bull kept staring down at Johnny's face, partly to make sure he wasn't hurting him, but mostly just because looking down into Johnny's green eyes felt like the highest reward in the world.

By the time Bull worked his cock all the way into him, Johnny's grip on his neck had loosened some, and he was pulling in long steady breaths instead of panting. He looked like he'd do okay, so Bull reached between them, and took Johnny's cock in hand so that he could stroke him off as he started to thrust into him. It was a good reminder to go slow: that slide of his slick hand over Johnny's dick, so much better at teasing Johnny out when he didn't rush. Bull squeezed the base of Johnny's cock as he drew back, and then matched a long glide of his hips back into Johnny with the stroke up his dick.

"Aw, Jesus," Johnny muttered and turned his head away.

Bull bit the inside of his cheek and forced himself to breathe slowly and ignore the way every touch of their bodies together sent a jolt of pleasure right to his dick. He wanted to just grab Johnny's hips and drive into him until he found release, ignoring everything except the slide of skin on skin and the way each time he entered Johnny, that little bit of wind got knocked out of him, like Bull was filling Johnny with himself, and not leaving room for anything else.

He didn't know if he'd ever felt _want_ like this before, or rather he knew he had, for years, and this was the first time he'd gotten that wish fulfilled.

But he couldn't rush, couldn't do anything that might risk hurting or distressing Johnny, so Bull crumpled all those feelings in as tight a little ball as he could manage and set them aside as he kept his pace steady and his attention fixed on Johnny's face. He still wasn't looking up at Bull, but Johnny didn't seem distressed, just overwhelmed. He was sucking in quick little breaths in response to Bull's hand on his cock, his hands spasming on Bull's neck and shoulder.

Bull had wanted to feel what it was like to be inside Johnny when he came, and they were getting close. Bull could feel that Johnny needed something else, in the same way he could taste a dish and tell that it needed salt by the space left behind his tongue. He was too breathless to say anything pretty, and Johnny had shaken off the hand on his face.

"Johnny, please," Bull gasped and at the same time as he snapped his hips into Johnny's ass, he pumped Johnny's dick fast and hard, dragging him over the edge. Johnny always went perfectly still the moment he came, as if time had snagged somehow. His body clenched around Bull's dick, and it was nearly enough to pull him over with him, but not quite.

What did that was Johnny smiling up at Bull, relaxed and happy, not seeming to mind that Bull was jerking their bodies together erratically, no longer able to hold himself back as he chased that last little bit of pleasure. Bull came saying Johnny's name, and had to catch himself on his elbows to keep from crushing Johnny under him. Bull knew he should pull out of Johnny and roll off, but he didn't want this feeling of togetherness to end. He could feel his dick going soft inside Johnny, moving more easily now as his come mixed with all the slick he'd used. It was too easy to imagine just staying like this, lying together as the air cooled their bodies, staying joined until Bull started to get hard again, then continuing. They could make love like this until Pat got up and threw them out of bed.

But Johnny was pushing at Bull's shoulder, wordlessly trying to get him out of and off of him, so Bull rolled over, letting their bodies fall apart, until they lay as two people again, both cooling as their sweat dried. Bull groped for Johnny's hand, but couldn't find it, and looked over to see Johnny using the towel to mop between his legs. Bull looked down at himself, and found that his shirt was covered in Johnny's come. He sighed and let his head fall back on the pillow, then decided that he wanted to cuddle and sat up enough to pull his shirt off, fold it around the worst of the mess and throw it at the laundry basket. Johnny's towel hit at the same moment, and then Johnny rolled over to put his head on Bull's shoulder.

"You doing okay?" Bull asked as he folded Johnny into his embrace.

"Mmm," Johnny answered. He threw his leg over Bull's thighs, and pulled the quilt up over them, or over Johnny, at least—half of Bull's body was still uncovered. Bull kissed Johnny's hair and thought about rolling them both into bed for a nap. He'd promised to make something more than sandwiches for dinner though, and that would probably mean getting up soon.

Bull held on more tightly and listened to Johnny's breathing as it settled down. He considered the idea that they could hold each other like this every day, any time they wanted to, for how long? Bull almost wished he knew, but then decided that it was better not to fret about each time together maybe being the last.

Johnny, though, seemed to be thinking ahead. "Hey, Bull." When Bull made a soft noise of assent, he continued, "which way do you like best?"

"I guess I don't know," Bull said, but he thought it over, stroking his hand down Johnny's shoulder. "Usually a fellow just asks me if I want to do what he wants to do, and I say I do, unless it's the kind of thing I really don't, like with knives and that, and that's kind of the end of it." He wanted to ask Johnny if he understood, but from the stillness in Johnny, he didn't. Bull's life of casual promiscuity still seemed to be a closed book to Johnny, even after being best friends with Bill for three years. Bill's preferences had always lined up with Bull's, save directed exclusively at the female sex: as long as they were warm and willing, he wasn't bothered by the details.

"Knives?" Johnny demanded, sounding appalled, and Bull sighed. He should have thought of a softer example.

"People like all kinds of things," Bull said, and pondered how to sum up masochism, but eventually gave up and just said, "Some people like it when it hurts."

"Do you?" Johnny asked, lifting his head to look at Bull. "Because I don't think I could..."

Bull shook his head. As much as the guys had joked about Johnny being a sadist when he ran the platoon's PT drills, Bull couldn't quite picture him as being into the whips and chains thing in bed. "I don't mind some of it, if the other fellow asks," he said, "but I don't need it the way some people do."

"What do you need?" Johnny pressed. The man could be like a dog worrying away at a bone sometimes.

Bull briefly considered putting talking about things on his list of things he didn't want, and therefore shouldn't be made to do in bed, but knew that was pure cowardice. "To get off? I reckon so long as I'm with someone who wants to be with me, and we're all touching each other, that's all it takes. I told you, I ain't much in the way of fussy. I've liked everything we've been doing. There's a few more things we might try, but we've covered the idea of it." He felt like Johnny was pushing for a specific response, so he finally asked, "What about you?"

"I don't know," Johnny said, and Bull felt his breath catch before he could stop it, just like it had at the kitchen table when Johnny said he was worried about Bull and being able to say what he didn't like. Bull looked straight up and focused on breathing, waiting for Johnny to finish whatever it was. "I've liked most of it," Johnny said eventually, talking slowly as though he were figuring it out even as he spoke, "and it ain't that I've not liked trying the rest. Only way to work it out, I figure, you know?"

Bull did know, and made himself nod just to move this conversation forward. He'd never done something that Johnny hadn't made very clear that he'd wanted, even in cases where he hadn't asked for it outright, but the worry that he'd somehow done wrong by Johnny lingered. Bull was the one who was supposed to know his way around all this.

"Well, if it don't matter to you," Johnny said, coiled, watching Bull for any sign of opposition, "I think I'd as soon as not be the one getting screwed, too often anyhow." On Bull's look he added hastily. "You ain't done nothing wrong, it was fine, I just felt, I don't know." Johnny shook his head miserably, and looked like he regretted bringing the whole thing up at all, no matter how circuitous the route.

"It's all right," Bull said, and leaned over to kiss Johnny's forehead. Johnny melted against him in a puddle of gratitude. "To tell the truth, I might like it a little better the other way anyhow." He wasn't entirely sure if he did, but he didn't like it any worse, and his words eased the last threads of tension out of Johnny's body.

What would Johnny have done if Bull had said that he really liked screwing him? Despite the promise they'd made, Bull had some notion that Johnny would have kept his preferences to himself, and taken whatever Bull gave him. He frowned, mouth turning down against Johnny's hair, and tried to think of how to say that past restating the promise they'd all made. Pat, of all of them, seemed fairly good at just saying "no" when she didn't want to do something, but Bull and Johnny were caught in a dance around each other that Bull had no idea how to duck out of.

Pat drifted in before he could say anything, dressed in her underwear with one of Bull's button down shirts thrown over top, which was an outfit Bull appreciated more than words could express. She smiled down at them, looking tired and strained, but not annoyed to find another man in her bed. Johnny had his back to the door, and only saw her when she circled to perch on the edge of the bed behind Bull.

He started then, and a guilty look flashing across his face as though she'd caught him out, but that passed in a moment and then he was holding his hand out for her to take. Pat did, leaning in so she could put Johnny's hand on her chest over top of her heart, and they smiled at each other. Bull thought Johnny looked pretty satisfied with himself for a man who'd just admitted to not having been thrilled about the sex he'd just had.

Bull only remembered that his shoulder and side were bare when Pat made a tutting sound and ran her fingers over the bruises. He felt an irrational urge to hide them from her, but didn't have a way to do it that wasn't flat out leaping out of bed and running away. The heartsick shame of them rose up again, and he looked away, burying his face in Johnny's hair.

"Shhh," Pat murmured and bent to brush her lips to the darkest marks on his shoulder, before moving to his scraped ribs, the side of his stomach, his hip, the side of his thigh. She didn't say anything, just laid kiss after kiss across his skin, as Bull squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to cry. Then she stood and leaned across Bull to kiss Johnny on the mouth. "You two having fun?"

"Better when you're here," Johnny said, though Bull doubted he'd picked a time when Pat wasn't around because he wanted to be watched.

Bull wiggled out from between them and down off the bottom of the bed, he was going to head back into his room for fresh clothes when Pat caught his wrist and reeled him in to her side. "Forgetting something?" she asked, then tilted her head back and parted her lips like a girl in the movies.

"As if I could," Bull said, and bent to kiss her. The tops of her breasts overflowed her bra, and brushed against his chest, and Bull considered that maybe not wearing a shirt when they were together would be nice. It wasn't like Pat didn't know. She'd seen everything had happened to him since the very first moment she'd met him, and still welcomed him into her home, into her life, into her bed. He stood naked in her arms every ugly mark visible, and she touched him and kissed him, and said she wanted him to be happy.

Pat was rubbing her hands up and down his back when she got to the tear on his left shoulder blade and stopped cold. Dropping her hands, she circled around him to look at it. Bull stood stock still, feeling her fingertips trace the line of it, then fall away.

"It's just the war," he said, dismissing the only other time he'd been as afraid as he had when he'd been on the ground outside the foundry.

Pat made that unhappy tutting sound again, but Johnny distracted her by getting out of bed and wrapping his arms around her from behind, and Bull was able to make his escape.

Bull made a tuna casserole, and when they were all sitting around the table, Pat prodded unenthusiastically at hers and said, "I been thinking."

"Oh no," Bull and Johnny said at once, then grinned at each other and moved their legs out of the way so she couldn't kick them.

"I been thinking," Pat said again, "about maybe asking Uncle Ronny to move my day off from Saturday to Monday."

Bull looked at Johnny to see what he had to say about that. Mr. Wilson's words about letting his pretty wife stay home with Bull all day still rang through his head.

"I ain't got Monday off either," Johnny protested, then sighed. "Truth is, I ain't got any day off, except part of Friday, and Bull doesn't have that."

"Might be able to get it," Bull said, but he doubted it, and Johnny would know that better than he did.

"That's wearing you out, Johnny," Pat said, frowning, and Johnny shrugged and shovelled a forkful of casserole into his mouth so he didn't have to talk. "Anyhow, I thought it would be nice to spend some time with Denver, and the work on Saturday is lighter than Monday." When Johnny still hesitated, she added, "I'd see a bit more of you, too, I think."

"Yeah, you would," Johnny admitted, but he looked tired just thinking about it. The next day he'd be up on some roof all day, and the next day after that, and Bull wished he had it in him to forgo sleep and help somehow. Pat was right, it was wearing Johnny out, no matter if he wanted to admit it or not. "I think it's a good idea."

They both looked at Bull, who shrugged, but since they wanted his opinion, said, "I wouldn't say no to seeing more of Pat." And, now that he thought of it, to not spending two days rattling around in a house that wasn't his, inventing things to fret about.

After Johnny had done the dishes, Pat lay on the couch with her head in Bull's lap and a cold cloth over her eyes. The radio was on too low to really hear, and Johnny drifted in and out of a doze in the armchair. For his part, Bull sat perfectly still and marvelled at how he could be here with them, and Pat could trust him enough to sleep so near him. He wanted to stroke her hair, but didn't want to jostle her or aggravate her headache, so he just sat with his hand on her shoulder until he had to get up and change for work. When he did, he knelt by the edge of the couch and rested his head against her hip until she stroked his hair in sleepy approval. When Bull got up, Johnny was already standing, waiting to kiss him.

Maybe it was a silly thing to think, but when they treated him like this, Bull always felt like a knight in a story with his ladies sending him off into battle. The feeling usually buoyed him up at least as far as the walk to the rail yard, and sometimes part way through the night. It might be cold and dark, but the memory of why he was doing any of this pushed Bull forward.


	6. Chapter 6

Johnny was already gone when Bull got in from work the next morning. Pat was sitting on the couch with her feet up and Bull's grey suit jacket spread over her belly, trying to do something about the frayed sleeve. Bull kissed her, then left her to it and went to try to shower the diesel exhaust and coal dust out of his hair.

"There's just some porridge on the stove that Johnny made," Pat said when he came out, "but I can fix you some eggs or something, if you like."

"Naw, it's all right," Bull said, wishing he weren't so tired himself. Pat was just starting her day off, and here Johnny was gone for the next ten hours, and Bull was falling down exhausted from being up all night. They were just going to leave her all on her own.

Pat drifted into the kitchen to sit with him and have another coffee while he ate. He tried to think of something interesting to say about work, or what he'd been thinking, or any of it, but nothing came to him. He looked at her—face bare of makeup, hair held back from her with a folded yellow kerchief, dark eyes crinkled as she smiled at him—and felt twinned feelings that it ought to be Johnny sitting here, not him, and that there wasn't anything in the world that he wouldn't do for this woman. "You're awful pretty today," he told her.

"Flattery will get you everywhere," Pat said, and reached across the table to lay her hand on his wrist.

"That so? Where do you think it'll get me?" Pushing his bowl aside, Bull took her hand in both of his and pulled it up to his mouth. He kissed the backs of her knuckles first, looking over them to gauge her reaction, then turning her hand so that he could take her thumb between his lips and tease the tip of it with his tongue as if it were her clit.

"I can think of a few places." Pat's laugh was low and husky. "Bed for a start."

But when they got to bed, Bull was so tired that they just kissed contentedly for a while, rubbing against each other without it ever going anywhere in particular. Bull drifted off and didn't wake until he heard Johnny coming in from work late in the afternoon.

He'd meant to get up earlier, spend some time with Pat, help out with chores, but instead he's slept like a log for almost ten hours. Bull got up so that he could kiss Johnny before he got into the shower, but instead of a quick greeting, it turned into the kind of embrace Bull remembered from the war, where they just clung to each other for all they were worth.

"Jesus, I'm tired," Johnny groaned. "I didn't used to wear out like this."

"Getting old," Bull muttered into his hair, which smelled of sweat and sawdust. "Be falling apart before long."

"Oh, hush," Pat said from the kitchen door, but lines of worry corrugated her forehead. "You'll feel better after a shower."

That was probably Bull's cue to let go of Johnny, but he kept holding on, and eventually Pat joined him so that Johnny was wrapped up in both of their arms. He sighed and rubbed his face against Bull's chest, showing on signs of ever moving again. That was fine. Bull was happy to hold him as long as he liked, forever maybe.

Eventually, Johnny sighed, and Bull let go, though he shared a worried look with Pat over his head.

"Come on, dinner'll be ready soon," Pat said, and smacked Johnny's ass as he lingered near Bull, holding onto on his arm like it was the only thing keeping him from falling over.

"Sure, all right, all right," Johnny muttered and trudged off.

Pat shook her head and went back into the kitchen.

At dinner, Johnny shovelled food into his mouth automatically, the same distant look in his eyes Bull had seen on the line, after they'd been fighting for days. It was different here though. Here Johnny didn't have that tightly strung watchfulness to him. Here he knew he was safe.

On past weekends, Johnny had napped on the couch just to share their company, but that night he yawned so hard his jaw made a cracking sound, and Pat told him to go to bed.

"Fine," Johnny muttered, but he looked mournfully at Bull, and Bull could see he was thinking the same thing: they hadn't seen each other all day, and wouldn't see each other the next day, either.

"I'll come lie down with you for a spell," Bull said. He'd have to go to work in a few hours, but he wouldn't mind spending that time holding onto Johnny, asleep or awake.

Johnny shrugged and tried to look like he didn't mind one way or another, but his shoulders relaxed and Bull could see the relief in him.

Bull stripped down to his t-shirt and skivvies as Johnny changed into the ratty old shorts he slept in, it occurred to him that they two had never actually slept together, at least not since they'd been back from the war. When they'd been in the army, curling up into the driest available space and falling asleep in each other's arms had been so normal that even the guys Bull had been sure only liked women had done it. Certainly, Bull had dedicated the odd fantasy to Johnny being pressed up against his chest because he wanted to be, not just because Bull made a good barrier against the wind, but he'd known it hadn't been real. He'd certainly thought so at the time, and more fool him, as Johnny had later confessed to imagining the exact same thing.

Now, it felt both the same and different when Johnny curled up on his side and Bull wrapped his arms around him. The shape of Johnny's body was something Bull had long since memorised, along with the patterns of his breath and the beat of his heart when he was this tired. The soft bed was an improvement, though they'd shared a few of those in Germany and Austria too—a special kind of torture, Bull had thought at the time, while at the same time hoarding those memories for later.

He was still hoarding them, even now, trying to remember every part of this, how Johnny felt against his skin, the sound of his breathing, the smell of his freshly washed hair.

"Bull?" Johnny asked, in the softest voice imaginable, barely a vibration in the close air of the bedroom.

Pat was rattling around the living room, loud enough that Bull could be sure of privacy when he whispered back. "You not sleeping?"

"Keep worrying," Johnny mumbled, wrapping his hands around Bull's arm where it looped around his chest.

"You do that too much," Bull said, and kissed the back of Johnny's neck. "Rest easy a while."

"I got three years on this degree," Johnny continued regardless, "and that's if I take summer classes and keep my grades up, and the rate we're going, Pat and I'll have half a house full of kids by then, so she won't be able to work. I need to keep the roofing job, not just for the money, but if I want to work with that when I'm out of school, I'll need to know all that and have the contacts I'm making."

"I can help with the money," Bull said. The starting wage at the rail yard wasn't a hell of a lot, but it would make a difference, especially once Pat stopped working. "I want to help."

"I know you do." Johnny took Bull's hand and lifted it to his face so he could rub his cheek against it. "It's not that. I'm just so goddamned tired. All the time. Feel like I've been tired since Normandy, you know?"

"Yeah," Bull said. "Yeah, I know Johnny. I wish I could take some of that off of you, too, but I don't know as you'd let me."

"I..." Johnny started, then shook his head and buried his face against Bull's hand. Bull thought about Pat saying that she felt guilty for not keeping a better house for Johnny, as if he gave a shit if the floors were waxed. He thought Pat had a better idea of what her husband thought was expected of him, but didn't imagine she had much more of a notion than Bull did of what to do about it. He supposed he'd have to ask her.

"We'll work it out. Later. You should rest now." Bull pulled his hand away from Johnny's and ran it down over his chest, across his stomach to rest on his hip, just at the waistband of his shorts. He rubbed his thumb back and forth over Johnny's bare skin, one of those spots that drove him wild. "You want me to take your mind off it?"

Johnny chuckled and wiggled his ass against Bull's stomach. "You'll take just about any excuse to get your hand in my pants won't you?"

"Ain't yet found one you'll turn down." Bull proved his point by feeling his way into Johnny's shorts and taking him in hand. He was still soft, but started to stiffen at Bull's touch.

"God," Johnny breathed, and relaxed back against Bull. He moaned softly with every stroke, and rolled his hips a little, but otherwise just enjoyed the pleasure of Bull's touch.

Bull hummed to himself and occasionally kissed Johnny's neck and shoulders. He kept his movements steady and even, drawing out Johnny's arousal until he was whimpering and shaking under Bull's touch. Johnny was so warm, so openly appreciative of Bull's touch, that Bull still had a difficult time wrapping his head around the idea that this was real.

When Johnny came, he melted back against Bull's chest and sighed in contentment.

"You're too good to me," Johnny murmured.

"Better than you deserve," Bull said fondly, and kissed the back of his neck. "Ain't seemed to stop me though."

"Hard not to feel selfish," Johnny said, almost as though he didn't know he was speaking aloud. Bull could feel his body tumbling towards sleep. "Wanting both of you."

"Guess that makes us all selfish," Bull told him. He waited until Johnny was out cold, and then got up and tidied. His dick was still a little hard from having Johnny writhing against him. He thought about going into his own room to jerk off, but decided that he liked the buzz of desire that came with it. Maybe he even liked the feeling of selflessness he got from getting Johnny off without needing anything in return. Bull knew he didn't have a lot to offer them past his body and his labour. Each time they took one or the other, he felt a little like he was earning his place in this paradise.

When he got back out to the living room, Pat had settled into the couch with a basket of mending. Bull still had an hour before he had to leave, so he sat on the other end of the couch and took something off the top of the pile. It was one of Johnny's shirts, and had the breast pocket half ripped off, an easy enough fix even for Bull's limited skills.

"You don't have to," Pat said, and Bull shrugged, and took a needle out of the basket. He knew the thing gleam of metal must look absurd in his big hands, but he threaded and set to work. "He's out then?"

Bull nodded.

Pat hummed, a low worried sound of understanding. "I wish I had the least idea what to do about him," she said, stabbing the needle into the jeans she was hemming.

"Yeah, me too," Bull agreed. He felt there had to be a solution, but hadn't worked out what it was yet. All he did know was that you could only pull a man so many different ways before something snapped inside him. He also knew that for all his overt cantankerousness, Johnny had a very long fuse. It had taken to Bill losing his leg for it to finally reach its end before. Though now that Johnny had known that he could shatter once, would he take longer to break this time, or be weaker at the points of old injuries?

"I've got faith we'll come through," Pat said, picking up the dark turn in his thoughts.

"How's that?" Bull asked. Of the three of them, Pat was the only one to attend church other than at Christmas and Easter, and she said it with the confidence of a believer, but Bull didn't really want to hear about God's Plan or any of that guff. Whatever plans God had, Bull couldn't imagine they involved the kind of man he was, that Johnny was, that Pat was consorting with, leastways it was all adultery so far as he could tell, and not too much he liked came of that kind of thing in the Bible.

Pat didn't say anything about God or church; she just shrugged and said without looking up, "We all love each other, and I don't know anything that can stop Johnny in the end, just slow him down. You should have seen him talking my dad around when we got engaged."

Bull would have pegged Johnny as the type to find some way around asking for a father's blessing, but maybe Pat had made that a condition. "It don't seem like much slows you down, neither."

Pat put her hand on her stomach and answered ruefully, "There's a few things that do."

"Suppose so." Bull reached across and put his hand over hers on her stomach. "Did you just say you loved me?"

"Of course I do," Pat told him. She set her sewing to the side so she could look Bull in the eye. "Not the same way as I love Johnny, but it's something like that, you know?"

Bull nodded slightly. "I know," he said, then because he felt it he couldn't just leave it there, added. "I'm not much for talking about that kind of thing, but you're right in saying that we all feel that way about each other."

"I know," Pat said. She smiled across their pile of mending.

"It ain't something I've had much practice at," Bull told her, hand still over hers. He didn't know if he was capable of pulling it away just then. "Guess I still need to get used to the idea." He just hoped that he didn't get used to it around the same time as the whole thing got taken away.

"There's a lot about this we're all still getting used to," Pat told him. She took his hand and lifted it to rub his knuckles against her cheek. Bull opened his hand and cupped the side of her face, and she kissed the inside of his wrist. She held her gaze steady on his and said, "Just while you're getting used to it, don't let all that stuff in your head make you forget that I do love you, and that Johnny loves you too. Okay?"

"Okay," Bull said, throat tight with unshed tears. It wasn't something anyone had said to him since the last time he'd seen his ma, and now that last time the year before would probably also be the last time he ever saw her. Someday, Bull was going to come to terms with that loss, but he didn't expect it was going to be any time soon.

Pat squeezed his wrist and let go of him, so he let his hand drop, and they both went back to their sewing, letting the silence rest between them.

* * *

Bull got all the way to Monday without seeing much of Johnny. Pat said on her way out the door to work, what she hoped was her last Monday working, that she hoped that they could spend the afternoon together after Johnny got home from school. With the emphasis she put on _together_ , Bull had a pretty good idea that she wanted them to be doing it in bed. It had long ceased to be a question where Bull would sleep when he was working nights and napping in the day. He simply stripped to his shorts and t-shirt and curled up the middle of Johnny and Pat's bed, surrounded by their scents and their possessions.

He woke hours later curled up around Pat as she slept beside him. He hadn't even noticed her joining him this time, whatever she was to him now, it was ingrained deeply enough that even the most watchful parts of his brain counted her as no threat whatsoever. He stroked her back and she blinked awake, clearly not having been that deeply asleep. Pat smiled and kissed him, and soon the hand that had been resting on his ribs had found its way down to the hem of his shorts. Bull laughed against Pat's hair when she paused there, and Pat slipped her hand between his legs.

Her soft skin against his cock still felt both perfect and somehow wrong. He pushed both feelings aside like he always did, focusing on the way her hand on him rolled pleasure through his whole body, and on moving to touch her in response. He was still learning her body, but she moaned under his touch as he searched for all the places that made her feel good. Bull pushed her nightie up so that he could return the favour and toyed with her clit until she was gasping and holding onto his hip instead of trying to stroke him off. Pat laid kiss after kiss on Bull's neck and face, sometimes on the front of his shirt when that was all she could reach.

"Denver, please," she moaned, and wriggled away from his hands so that she could roll onto her back. Pat held out her arms to Bull, her desire clear.

Even now, Bull still hesitated. Like that first time the week before, he wasn't completely sure this was something he ought to do, that he wasn't by doing it somehow hurting his best friend in the whole world. It wasn't that he thought that Pat belonged to Johnny, so much as he felt like he was forcing a break in the vow they'd made to each other all those years ago, that he was intruding on something sacred, where someone like him had no right to be at all.

Pat's eyes were dark and pleading, and she kept trying to wrap her legs around Bull's thighs to pull him against her, even as she ran her nails up and down his back under his shirt. She wanted him badly, and Bull couldn't say no to that. He slowly pushed into her, watching her face as he had the first time, making sure that his size wasn't hurting her. Her body opened for him easily this time, and her arms and legs wrapped around him too.

She was so damn beautiful. Bull thought vaguely that other men might not like her round face, or the way she had a bit of an overbite, but he couldn't see anything besides how much her skin glowed, and the passion and expression in her eyes. She had thick brows, and they amplified everything she felt, arched right now in pleasure as Bull kept stroking between her legs at the same time as he thrust into her. She finally hooked her heels around his thighs and pulled him in with each drive forward, her hips rising to meet him. Her hands had stilled on his back, just holding onto him now as her neck arched and she cried out softly.

Bull kept moving as steadily as he could, but the sight of her spread out under him and the tight heat around his dick stripped away his control. He remembered how she'd ridden him before and knew that she'd be all right to handle a faster pace. He kept his hand on the mattress beside her shoulder, not wanting to crush her under him, and started to drive into her, chasing the heat that already sang through his blood, building inside him, promising him everything if he could just feel a little more.

His fingers working between them had become erratic, but she still came before he did, and the tightening of her body as she convulsed with orgasm pulled him over too.

They lay together panting for a while, until Bull flopped onto his back, pushing the sheets off in an attempt to cool off. From the light through the curtains, it was only early afternoon. Bull could probably sleep more, or maybe just lounge in bed with Pat. She still had her hand under his shirt and was trailing circles through the hair on his chest.

"It's a heck of a way to wake up," Bull commented, leaning over to kiss her forehead and tasting sweat.

"Yeah," Pat agreed, but she seemed a little distracted. Bull hitched their bodies closer via an arm around the small of her back, and let her think. Finally, she said, "I was thinking, what if Johnny came in when we were together like this."

Bull's first thought was about the look on Johnny's face when he'd finally worked out why Bull was packing to go, about how uneasy he still looked in unguarded moments. "Don't know that he always likes that," Bull said. "Seems like it's better when he's had a moment to get settled into the idea."

"He needs to understand that you're not going to take me away from him," Pat said, and the frustration in her voice surprised Bull.

"It ain't that he don't trust you," Bull told her. He stroked his thumb up and down her arm, trying to comfort her, but Pat remained restless.

"It sure feels like it, sometimes," she said waspishly, "but I can't say I really blame him, after how I started the whole thing without asking anyone."

"That ain't how it was," Bull protested, even though it was about exactly how it'd gone. "If it hadn't been for that, we'd never have got where we are now. I wish it hadn't hurt Johnny like it did, but I wouldn't trade this away just on account of that."

"I suppose not," Pat admitted. "I wouldn't trade what we have now for much of anything, really. It's too good."

"Johnny'll get used to it," Bull promised, and hoped that was true.

He knew that if, in the end, Johnny couldn't live with this, that Pat would give Bull up. She'd do it reluctantly, and there'd probably be a good deal of yelling, but if it came to forcing a choice, she would pick Johnny over Bull, every time. Part of Bull was glad that was true: he could hold it as reassurance that no matter what he did, he couldn't break that bond between them, could hardly even shake it. Another part of him wistfully wished that for someone on God's green Earth, Bull was their first choice when all the chips were down. It was a selfish thought, he knew. He should count himself very lucky indeed that he was even someone's second choice, two people's second choice, even, and that there was room in those people's lives for him. He was luckier than he had any right to be, but the thought still niggled at him.

"You're thinking too much," Pat said, and rolled over to straddle him. Her cunt was sopping from their come mixed together, and soaked his t-shirt. He wanted her to keep moving up until he could lick her out, but before he could suggest it, Pat put her hands on his shoulders and leaned down to kiss him. "I want to tell you the rest of the idea about Johnny walking in on us."

"The part besides where it'd upset him?"

"The part where he wouldn't be upset for very long," Pat corrected.

* * *

An hour later, Bull lay on his back, his fingers hooked under the edge of the headboard as Pat explored his body. He'd finally given up on the shirt concept. He kept having to throw them in the wash anyway, and when it came down to it, he'd rather feel her skin against his than cling to an illusion that nothing had happened to him. That kept shattering anyway, and the shirt wasn't really helping with it.

From the way Pat was slowly working down his chest, as careful to avoid the lingering bruises as she was eager to find all the places Bull liked to be touched, he thought it was a good choice on the whole. His body was humming along nicely, happy to be touched again, and Bull liked just lying there and letting Pat look after him. She was a generous partner, and always wanted Bull to enjoy himself, to give him everything she could.

He lifted his head and watched her. Pat had her hair up in an untidy bun, but strands had come loose and trailed over his skin as she moved from his collarbone to his nipple, nipping at the first, then taking the second between her lips and sucking lightly and rolling over it with her tongue. Bull groaned and rolled his hips up, and she looked up enough to grin at him through the dark curls trailing out of her bun.

She ran her hands down his ribs, and laid them flat on his stomach, She was kneeling next to his hip, and his cock had nothing to rub against, but Bull still tried. He'd gotten off not an hour before, but his body didn't seem to remember that, rising and searching for warmth and gratification as Pat kept teasing him. She nibbled at the other nipple, then licked a trail down the centre of his chest to his navel, before stroking her hands up his chest, pushing back up against the lay of his hair in a little ruffle of pressure that tingled through his body. Bull shivered and tightened his hold on the headboard. His skin shook under her touch, as if he was afraid of her, but it was just anticipation, pure want rushing over his body.

Pat bypassed his dick, and moved down to his thighs. Her lips pressed hot against the insides of them, and Bull instinctively opened his legs for her until she could kneel between them. Her hands felt so different from Johnny's as they ran up and down the insides of his legs, the skin smooth and soft, the touch much gentler, which just made it more teasing. He knew there was real strength in those hands, and that she was holding herself back. She nudged his knees and he pushed them further apart, and he spread open in front of her.

Finally, Pat knelt up and looked down at him, her gaze raking over his body. Bull could feel the heat of her eyes and see the appreciation in them, too, and instead of feeling embarrassment or a desire to hide himself away, he was content to lie there for her inspection. If Bull was what she'd decided she wanted, he certainly wasn't going to argue with her.

"Jesus, you're handsome," she said, and that did make Bull's face heat a little, though it was hard to tell with the lust rushing through his body. She was naked too, and from that position she was all curves and soft, flushed skin. He wanted to sit up and run his hands all over her, but her own hands were slowly, slowly moving up the insides of his thighs, and he wanted to see where that went.

Pat held his gaze as her fingertips moved down behind his balls until she was circling his hole. Bull bit his lip and looked away.

"All right?" Pat asked. Her hand froze where it was, two fingers pressed over his entrance, but not yet trying to push in.

Bull nodded, but said, "Don't feel like something a lady oughta be doing, is all."

Pat chuckled. "So you never let one of those English girls touch you like this? No? What about the French?"

"They never wanted to, and I weren't going to ask." Most of them hadn't been ladies, either, but that wasn't a conversation that Bull wanted to have right now. He didn't want to be talking at all, and didn't know why he'd said something to slow her down. "Keep going," he said, and she did.

The lube was warm from where she'd been pressing the tube between her thighs, and with just a little slick, she easily got two fingers inside of Bull. He'd thought she'd go deep, but instead she just toyed with his rim, rubbing her fingertip back and forth across it, pushing shallowly in and out of him.

Finally, Bull turned his face back to look at Pat, and wasn't surprised to find she was smirking down at him. He wasn't going to tell her that she was better at this than Johnny, though to be fair she had about as much experience so far. Johnny hadn't really wanted to do this much, seeming to have the feeling that if he didn't like bottoming, Bull might also find it some kind of indignity. Bull wanted to cure him of that too.

He wanted someone to screw him so badly just then. He'd take Pat's hand if he could, or anything she could find to thrust into him, but she wouldn't do it, just kept toying with him, only going a little deeper a little at a time, then pulling out again. He had more than enough slick spread across him and pushed into him, the lube carrying the sensation of her fingers. Finally, her fingers got far enough inside him to roll over his prostate. Bull's breath caught and he stiffened under her touch as the pleasure shot through him.

Pat's eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she rolled her fingertips back over the same spot and watched Bull jerk and strain against the headboard so hard that it creaked ominously. "What's this?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"It just." Bull licked his lips, then shook his head, words failing him. "Just keep that up?"

"All right, all right," Pat said. She had most of two fingers inside him now, thrusting a little and curving to make sure she touched him just like he wanted. When Bull started to try to lift his ass to push further onto her fingers, she laid her other hand on his hip, steadying him more than holding him down. It wasn't a great angle to move anyway, with his knees spread so wide. She was smiling down at him, an expression of immense fondness on her face, and it was enough to make Bull choke on all the emotions jamming up his heart at the same time.

She hadn't touched his dick yet, but it stood up straight, bobbing uncomfortably as he shifted and tried to grind down on her hand. Bull thought he could come just from Pat fingering him open, maybe just from the look in her eye just then. He didn't know if he'd ever felt this desired, and Johnny wasn't even here yet.

Pat's fingers started to spread him wide, going back to playing at his rim, and adding two more. He idly wondered if she could get her whole hand inside him. He'd wondered that about Johnny, too, but didn't think he'd go for that kind of thing. Pat might, though. Four fingers was already a stretch, even with as much lube as she was using, and Bull had to bite his lip and force himself to breath into her touch. A slight tug of discomfort sparked against the pleasure of the way she still kept going deep inside him, and Bull couldn't tell if he liked it or not. His whole body felt wound up and sated at the same time, and he was having a difficult time telling what he felt any more. He did know that if she wanted to keep this up all day, he'd be willing to lie here and take it.

Just as he thought that, Pat glanced at the clock on the side table, and said, "Okay, I think we can start." She pulled free of his ass, and Bull couldn't help whimpering. He felt empty without her taking him, and his ass kept clenching trying to find that same contact again.

Bull wanted to ask what they'd just been doing, if not starting, but he remembered her proposal, and rolled over to his hands and knees. Moving shifted the way blood moved through him enough to make him a little dizzy, on top of how detached from himself Bull already felt. He hardly noticed Pat nudging his knees further apart, until he was kneeling low with his ass in the air, and every part of him exposed to whoever might walk into the bedroom. Even though he knew exactly was going to walk in in a few minutes, Bull still felt himself flush with embarrassment at how he must look.

Pat crawled around him until she could sit with her against the headboard, a cushion jammed into the small of her back. She paused and stroked through Bull's hair. "Shh," she murmured, "Shh, it's okay, just focus on me, okay? You know how to make me feel good, don't you?" She stretched her legs out to either side of Bull and settled back against the headboard, tilting her hips to give him more room.

Nodding, instead of saying anything, Bull settled his elbows outside her thighs, and took her hips between his hands. He loved the curve of them, how she widened up from her thighs into a full, round ass and wide hips, and from there the rise of her belly. He wondered if she'd thin again into a waist after the baby was born, or if she'd stay round like this. He liked the idea of both. Now, he nosed into her folds until he could wrap his lips around her clit and start to suck.

"Oh!" Pat cried, and grabbed his shoulders. "Oh, yeah."

It was easy to forget how he must look when his mouth could draw sounds like that out of Pat, so Bull put his mind on licking and sucking. He pressed his whole face between her legs so that he could put his tongue inside her, circling around her entrance until he ran out of breath, and needed to go back to licking between her folds. She was already slick and ready just from fingering him open, and Bull had no idea what to think of that, so he set it aside for later. Each time he moved to try something new, he could feel the pleasure roll though her, as her thighs quivered against his arms, and her breathing accelerated and hands tightened on his shoulders. She wasn't even trying to keep quiet, and moaned and cried and cooed as each sensation struck her.

Bull didn't hear the front door open and shut, but he did hear the sudden squeak of Johnny's shoes as he stopped at the threshold of the bedroom, and the low, reverent, "Jesus Christ," almost buried under Pat's latest cry as Bull rolled the point of his tongue over her clit. Bull froze, almost lifting his head until Pat's hand in his hair kept him in place.

"Sorry. I'll just..." Johnny started, and even through the blood pounding in his ears, Bull could hear the hurt in his voice. He knew this whole thing had been a bad idea. It was too soon for Johnny. He needed more time to get used to the idea of all this, in his heart as well as his head.

"Johnny, no, stay," Pat said, voice surprisingly sharp for someone who had her lover's face buried between her legs. "We want you to stay."

"No, I... Patty."

Bull groaned. They were ruining everything, but his mouth transmitted the moan to Pat's clit, and she grabbed his hair hard enough to hurt, jerking her hips up against his face.

"Look how much Denver wants you," Pat insisted through gritted teeth. "We made him ready for you."

Bull knew what he looked like, his legs uncomfortably spread, and his ass wet with slick. Even with it all falling apart, his cock hung hard and heavy between his trembling thighs, telling Johnny everything that his words couldn't. He still felt the emptiness of not having Pat's fingers inside him any more, and knew that Johnny could see the way his ass was clenching around nothing, too.

Johnny groaned, sounding defeated, and Bull heard him walk closer to the bed. Johnny touched Bull hip and then cupped it with his palm. His touch was cool, shocking against Bull's overheated skin. Bull shivered, as much from the feeling of being examined as at the cold. He felt like Johnny was looking him over to see if he felt Bull was worth the time to screw, and somehow that transformed his embarrassment at being on display into absolute pure need to be taken. He pressed his hip against Johnny's hand, and moaned against Pat's cunt when Johnny squeezed Bull's hip in response.

"See," Pat said, "he wants you so bad. He wants to please both of us at once."

"Jesus Christ," Johnny murmured again, but he didn't take his hand off Bull's hip. "You're killing me here."

"Poor thing," Pat cooed, and Bull laughed and started to lick her again. He could tell from Johnny's tone that he was already onboard, just having needed a few moments to get used to the idea.

A moment later, Bull heard Johnny kick his shoes off and unzip his fly. The bed dipped as he climbed on. Bull could feel the wool of his suit pants on the insides of his thighs as Johnny knelt between his spread legs. He took hold of Bull's hips, but tentatively, like he wasn't yet sure what he was going to do. Bull dropped his head back down and started to thrust his tongue inside Pat again. She was holding herself back, not coming yet, though Bull knew she wasn't usually that slow a start, for all that she liked to take her time. She'd been waiting for Johnny, looking as wanton and wild as he was. She kept her hand in Bull's hair, but wasn't pushing his head down any more, just resting it there as a steadying touch. He liked the way her nails scratched against his scalp. He liked the way she moaned softly and rolled her hips as he drank her in.

Johnny ran his hand up Bull's spine and sighed softly. "God," he said, sounding like he couldn't keep the word in, but at the same time it had cost him to say. "I can't get over you, Bull."

He let go and bent for the slick Pat had left by Bull's ankle. Bull felt Johnny's fingers on his hole, but knew he wouldn't need anything else there. He was open and ready, but he couldn't tell Johnny that, not while he was still licking Pat out. Pat for her part had fallen still, and her breaths were tightening and quickening as she watched Johnny.

Bull gasped at the feel of Johnny's dick pressing against his hole. As ready as he was, the feeling of being entered always shocked something out of him by the mixture of perfect sinful pleasure and apprehension. Pat's fingers rubbed at the base of his skull to calm him, even as she gasped. Bull didn't know if it was a response to the noises he was making against her clit, or the sight of Johnny slowly pushing into him.

Johnny had both hands on Bull's hips now. Trapped between the two of them, Bull couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to, but as Johnny pushed into him, making space for himself inside Bull's body, Bull thought that he never wanted to move again. If there was any place in the world he could belong, he thought it was here, caught between Pat and Johnny, his body turned to making them feel good even as they looked after him. As Johnny rocked forward, Bull sucked Pat's clit into his mouth again holding it ever so lightly between his teeth and rolling his tongue over it. Pat screamed, her legs pushing out against Bull's arms, and her hips rising. Johnny finally settled, and this time didn't wait to see what Bull wanted. This time, Johnny knew. He pulled out almost to the tip of his dick, and as Pat rocked against Bull's mouth, Johnny thrust in, pushing Bull forward and down.

They rocked Bull between them, driven forward by the perfect friction of Johnny's dick pushing into him, but held in place by the hands on his hips, and the lack of anywhere to go. He had to let go of Pat's clit as he gasped with his own pleasure. He wanted Johnny to grab his dick and stroke him off so that he could come with Johnny inside him, but neither of them touched him. Neither of them had touched his dick since he'd been inside Pat, and that felt like days ago.

Bull's body screamed with want. He needed to be touched, more than he had a way to express, and no way to express it anyway, except through his lips on Pat's cunt.

Now, she was letting herself go. He could feel her thighs shaking with tension as she climbed higher and higher under his touch, even as Johnny kept up a fast and steady drive into Bull's ass. There was an incredible intimacy to the feel of Pat's thighs along the sensitive skin of the insides of his arms. He'd been holding on to her hips, not holding her down, but giving himself a point of contact, something to touch, but now he slid his hands under her ass and squeezed, pulling her up towards his face even as she pressed down on the back of his head.

Pat came hard, grinding against Bull's face with such force that he couldn't find breath. He started to feel dizzy as she clung to him, her hips rocking up even as he tried to ride her pleasure. Behind Bull, Johnny's pace had picked up, his hips slapping into Bull's ass as he lost control of himself. Bull clenched down around Johnny's dick even as he rubbed the widest part of his tongue over Pat's folds, soothing her all the way down. His own cock rocked back and forth as his body jerked against Pat's, painfully hard and still untouched. He should have come from all the sensations tearing through his body, but something held Bull back, made him wait.

Johnny drove into his ass, and came.

Stillness followed, Johnny's panting the only sound filling the room. Bull pulled back to lay his face on one of Pat's thighs. He thought that if he and Johnny just rolled together, that Johnny could spoon up behind Bull with his dick still inside him. Bull would like that, the feeling of still being held on all sides, that Johnny was still a part of him. If they wanted, they could lie together like that until Johnny got hard again, and they started all over again. The decadence of all that tugged at Bull's desire even as Pat stroked his hair away from his temple and Johnny ran his hands up and down Bull's back.

Bull's cock ached to come, but even that felt distant under the comfort of their touch. He whimpered in disappointment as Johnny pulled free of his ass. He could feel come and lube mingling and trickling down his thighs, then Johnny wiping it away with something soft, and pushing at Bull's hip until he rolled onto his back in the centre of the bed. That made his head fall off Pat's lap, which Bull regretted, but he had a pillow under his head, and was stretched across a soft bed, and their hands were still all over him. Johnny was stroking Bull's leg's trying to get him to lie down flat, while Pat was touching his chest again.

"I want to suck him," Pat said, and Bull started in surprise, but even then it seemed perfectly natural when Johnny answered, "I'll show you." He lay perfectly still as they knelt on either side of his hips, their dark heads bending over his dick. Bull drifted, none of this feeling real. The need to come rocked through him like ripples on a pond. He listened to Johnny and Pat's soft voices if not the words, but didn't feel able to respond to any of it.

He felt Pat's mouth on his dick, and Johnny's on his balls, licking and sucking, low laughter and a world filled with pleasure. Pat toyed with the rim of his ass, like she had at the start, and Johnny's larger, rougher fingers joined hers. Bull lay on his back, whimpering at the touch and staring up at the shadowed ceiling. When he held his hands out touch, they each took one, and held it, but continued to focus on his cock. Bull felt the rush that came before orgasm building in him, only to have it stilled by Johnny pinching the base of his dick hard enough to make him gasp. He winced when Pat's teeth scraped against him, but couldn't tell if it felt bad or not. He didn't think anything could feel bad at this point.

Bull felt as though the whole bed were drifting downstream, cool spring air washing over them. Bull's ass full of Johnny's come, and his mouth tasting of Pat's, sated from hours of fucking around, and being touched. He didn't think it mattered if he came or not. Maybe this feeling of being on the very edge of everything he wanted would just last forever. He looked down, and saw that it was Pat who had her mouth on him now, bobbing up and down a little as Johnny caressed her cheek. It was still not quite right to let a lady do this to him, but Bull didn't have the heart to object.

Johnny let go of her cheek, and thrust his fingers into Bull's ass again, looking at him to see how he reacted. Bull was still so loose from being fucked and slick with come that he barely felt it until Pat said something, and Johnny found his prostate. That finally broke through the drifting happiness. Pleasure spiked, giving him that last little push, like the raft had slowed at the edge of a falls, and was now tumbling over.

"Pat," Bull said, but she was faster and had already pulled off, finishing him with a swift stroke of her hand, perfectly in time with the roll of Johnny's fingers inside Bull's ass. The room faded to nothing for a few movements, and even blinking shaking his head didn't bring it back again. He distantly heard Johnny's voice in his ear, soft and affectionate. He was still holding Johnny's hand, so he pulled it up to his mouth and kissed it. That seemed to sort everything out, and he came to a clearer sense of lying on the bed with Johnny curled up beside him, kissing Bull's face. Bull turned his head and kissed him back. He would have wrapped his arms around Johnny and crushed their bodies together, but Johnny was still dressed, and Bull had come all over his stomach and chest, and he didn't want to ruin Johnny's suit.

"I can't believe what you do for me sometimes," Johnny said.

Bull shook his head. "This ain't exactly a hardship," he said. "More like having all your dirtiest fantasies come to life."

"I'll say," Johnny agreed and rested his head on Bull's shoulder.

Bull had been wondering what had happened to Pat, but she came in a moment later with a wet cloth. She was still naked, but didn't seem to mind it, though her trailing hair was pinned back up into a slightly neater bun. She knelt next to Bull and wiped his face with the cloth. Cleaning away the drying perspiration and come felt like getting a whole shower, it was such a relief. Bull hadn't even realised how much he'd needed it. He tried to take the cloth away from Pat, but she smacked his hand lightly, and kept washing him, moving down his neck and shoulders when she was done with his face.

He felt like he should protest that he could mind after himself, but really it didn't matter much. He liked lying here between them, the warmth of Johnny's body at his side and Pat's cloth on his chest, making him clean again. He thought, now, that even if he wasn't anyone's first choice, being the second choice of two people who had this much room for care in their hearts might add up to the same thing.

He did manage to get the cloth away from Pat before she got between his legs, and rolled to his feet to put it in the basket. He wanted to go back to bed and sleep the afternoon away like he had the morning, but he supposed there were things that needed doing. There must be somewhere. When he turned back to the bed, Pat and Johnny were sitting next to each other with their foreheads resting together. They were smiling softly, and sharing a look that didn't seem to need words to go with it.

Bull promised himself that someday he was going to find a way to thank them for all this. For now, he felt he'd earned the first turn in the shower.

That night, no one argued with Bull when he said he wanted to sleep by himself. He wasn't completely sure that he did, but he couldn't see a workable way to fit three people, one of them not a small man in the double bed, especially if any of them tossed, turned, or needed to get up to go pee every half hour.

It wasn't so bad, anyway, having a little time to himself. He liked the feeling of curling up and gently drawing out the memories of the day, like a child's with a cigar box of treasures. He looked at each kiss, each kindness, every moment of laughter in its turn, until it was all catalogued and put back away for safekeeping, and eventually, he drifted off to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some violent imagery.

Bull came home to a silent house. He called out that he was there, but instead of Pat coming up to kiss him, or Johnny hollering back, there was just more silence. As he walked through the house, he heard distant crying. He called out for Pat and Johnny again, turning around and around in a house that had seemed top small before, but now had a bewildering number of doors.

Finally, he found his way through to the kitchen.

Once, in Normandy, Bull had beaten someone to death. It had been in close fighting, but he hadn't had time to fix his bayonet, and his rifle'd needed a new clip that he didn't have. He'd reversed his M1, and swung with all his strength. He'd caught the man he'd been grappling with just under the edge of his helmet, and cracked his skull right open. Bull'd had a moment to stare down at the ruined face that had moments before been a living breathing man, and feel aghast at what he'd done. Then the fight had called Bull away, and he'd left the dead man there, with the rain washing his blood and brains into the mud.

Johnny was lying on the kitchen floor with his head smashed in just like that German soldier's had been. Bull could hear the crying louder, and knew it had to be Pat. He couldn't see her, but there'd never been anywhere to hide in that kitchen. Bull fell to his knees on the blood-smeared linoleum, crawling over to Johnny, even though he knew checking for a pulse would be utterly pointless.

"Look what you've done."

"No, I..." Bull looked up to find his cousin Pauly standing over him holding a blood-smeared M1. "It wasn't me."

"Why sure it was," Pauly said, and swung the rifle down at Bull's head, and Bull knew he was dead.

Bull woke up gasping, his heart pounding so hard it made his head ache. His little room in the Martins' house snapped into focus around him, street lights dim through the curtains. He strained to hear, but the house was silent. It wasn't ominous like it had been in the nightmare, just still and full of sleep.

"Just a dream," Bull muttered, but his voice was as rough as if he'd actually been screaming. He hoped he hadn't. Surely Johnny would've come running by now.

He sat up and pulled the covers up to his chin, trying to turn his mind away from the bloody horror it'd conjured up. He knew that if he didn't dwell on it, it'd have a harder time fixing itself in his waking mind. Once Bull's hands stopped shaking, he got up and padded barefoot over to the door to Johnny and Pat's room. He turned the handle silently and eased the door open enough to look in. Bull stood there in the dark until he could be sure that he saw two forms softly breathing. It was hard to tell them apart, with their matching dark hair and the way they slept curled together as if they were sharing a bed half the size.

Satisfied, Bull pulled the door closed, holding the handle so that the latch didn't click. It'd been silly that he'd needed to look, but he knew that his mind wouldn't really be at rest until he'd seen the truth of it. He went into the kitchen, blinking at the harshness of the light as he turned it on. The floor was white, freshly washed: no blood, no bodies, no Pauly, no crying.

The clock above the sink told him it was three in the morning, but Bull knew he wouldn't sleep again that night, if for no other reason than he was afraid his mind would take up the dream again.

With hours left until Johnny and Pat got up for the day, Bull filled the kettle and set it on the stove, leaving the whistle off, and put some of Pat's odd tea in the pot. He thought about sitting in the living room, but something about the painfully bright kitchen and it's pristine white floor felt more comforting. Bull sat at the kitchen table, waiting for the tea and trying to pick through which parts of the dream, if any, he needed to worry about.

He didn't think there was much danger of trouble from Michigan following him here. He had sent the letter to his mother, which he supposed could leak word of where he was all the way back to Pauly, though he didn't think his mother would choose to share that bit of family shame around, but even so, why would Pauly track him down? He'd won, in the end. He'd driven Bull off, and given him a solid licking besides. Even a stupid son of a bitch like that had to know there was no point coming all the way down here just to drive a point home. Even if he did, he was more likely to try to talk Johnny around to the idea that Bull wasn't any good than to do harm to an unrelated third party. Bull's people weren't the kind to spread family disputes all over hell and gone anyhow.

Still, maybe Bull should've talked to Johnny and Pat before he'd sent that letter. He didn't think it would bring anything down on him, they'd even been the ones to suggest it, but maybe there was some angle to it he hadn't been smart enough to dredge up.

More likely than Bull's family specifically bringing trouble down on the house was Bull being there generally. It was coming up on three weeks since he'd wound up here, and he could hardly say he was just staying until he found his feet in a new city. With so many servicemen returning, rent was a little tight and housing scarce, but a single man who wasn't picky could shift well enough, usually. True enough, that was often by renting a room, which Bull technically had been doing since he'd gotten his first cheque from C&O, and he could always say he'd help out around the place, which was also true. He wasn't going to bars or cruising, so the chance of trouble following him home was lower, and the danger to his reputation likewise.

The real danger was the neighbours seeing something and deciding to tell someone, and they were always so careful about the curtains and making sure not to talk around open windows. Bull had made them all promise to keep it absolutely secret, and so far they'd done okay with that. It would still be Bull's fault if any trouble came of it, but he didn't really see any on the horizon.

As the tea cooled in the mug he cupped between his hands, Bull decided that that the dream was only so much paranoid nonsense, tossed up by an overwrought brain.

Too bad that telling himself didn't erase the image from his mind, or the horror and fear still crawling up Bull's spine.

He sighed and rubbed his hand over his mouth, then rubbed his eyes, jamming his mug-warmed hands into them until he saw stars. He needed to find something to do to get his mind off all this shit until he could talk to another living, breathing person again.

When Bull looked up, Johnny was standing in the kitchen doorway in his shorts and robe, watching Bull. "Trouble sleeping?"

Bull nodded. "My head don't seem to know what time it is no more."

"Yeah," Johnny said, but instead of going back to bed, he poured himself a mug of tea and sat down across from Bull. He looked him over with a critical eye before saying, "I still dream about the war sometimes."

"It weren't that," Bull said, his denial automatic, but then he thought that maybe Johnny would understand, like no one had. Not about this dream, then about the whole thing. "But I do too, sometimes."

"Can't usually sleep again, after," Johnny said, gaze fixed on his own mug of tea. "I know it worries Pat, but..."

"She'd probably listen, if you wanted to tell her," Bull said, but Johnny shook his head.

"I don't want her to know what it was like over there. I want one goddamn part of my life that ain't ruined by all that. By what we done."

Bull supposed that he himself counted as ruined by the war, but knew that wasn't how Johnny had meant it. No sense whining about what was true, anyhow. "You can talk to me, if you like," he said.

"I know I can," Johnny told him, but he still hesitated. Finally he looked up at Bull with those beautiful green eyes and said. "It just don't seem right, somehow: griping about a few bad dreams when I don't even have a purple heart to my name."

Bull nodded. It seemed like the guys who hadn't been wounded felt the difference more keenly than the guys who had. Bull had just been relieved to have his prayers answered and at least one of his friends got through the war without a scratch on him. "Well," he said slowly, "I got a purple heart, and if that gives me the say so on who gets to gripe about the war and who don't, I still say I wanna hear it."

"Yeah," Johnny said again. He took a sip of the tea, made a face, and got up to rummage through the cupboards until he found a bottle of whiskey on a high shelf. Johnny put a slug in his tea, then raised his eyebrows at Bull, who shrugged, and got a more generous dose in answer. "How come we're talking about me, anyhow?" Johnny asked, as he sat back down. "You're the one up drinking whatever the hell this is at 0400, staring off into the distance like you don't know what continent you're on."

"Oh, I know that all right," Bull said, wishing his troubles were as far away as Europe, "just fretting over nothing is all. You know me."

"I do know you," Johnny said, "and I know you're smart enough that if you're fretting, it ain't over nothing."

Bull didn't want to talk about the dream, didn't even want to think about it, not when Johnny was there beautiful and sleep mussed, sitting right in front of Bull. The whiskey really did improve the tea, which didn't taste like tea like in England, but some kind of swamp water with mint added. Maybe Bull could share the part of it that was real, at least. "I been wondering what our story's going to be, for me being here, I mean. Been a few weeks now."

Johnny shook his head. "You're just renting a room from a buddy. There's nothing in that."

"Suppose," Bull said. He'd been hesitant to think of the future, but with Pat introducing him to her parents the next day, it seemed like maybe one of them should. "Won't it look odd when the baby's here, and I'm still living in your nursery?"

"Not for a good six months, or so," Johnny said, but he was chewing his lip, thinking it over. "Pat'll want to keep the crib in our room anyway, til he gets bigger. That buys us until next winter, just about."

"All right," Bull said. Thinking ahead past next Thanksgiving seemed like too much right now. He wondered how many years it would take before people saw Bull as one of those sad bachelors who just wasn't able to make it on his own, and if he'd still care about that by then. "Suppose we can worry about the rest some time down the road."

"We'll make it work, Bull," Johnny promised. He put down his cup and took Bull's wrist, and the warmth of his palm made Bull shiver. "Maybe I don't know how yet, but we will. It ain't going to be that we need you to go, not when the baby comes, not next winter, not ever. We keep telling you: you can stay with us as long as you like."

Bull wanted to ask why they'd be willing to risk their whole lives just to keep him around, but it stuck in his throat and lifted tears to his eyes. He blinked and looked away.

It seemed like Johnny knew what he was thinking anyway. "Our lives are better with you here. We can get along fine without you, sure, we were before, but I don't see why we should have to. I like having you here. I like getting up and hearing your voice, and kissing you when I come home from school. I like what we do in bed, sure, but it's more than that; it's like, I don't know, it's like having you around makes me feel like I ain't got a piece of me missing no more. And it was like that before we started all this, too. Ever since I got sent home, I missed you, and now you're here, and I'm planning to fight like hell to keep you here."

Bull closed his hands into fists, and kept his eyes on the table in front of him. He didn't understand how hearing everything he'd ever wanted—perfect honeyed promises one after another, and Johnny meant them, too, it wasn't like he needed to say any of this to get Bull into bed—made him want to weep. He should tell Johnny something, give him some sign of how much his words meant, but he was all choked up inside, and nothing came. Eventually, the tear clinging to his lashes dripped onto the table, and Bull had to sniff so snot wouldn't run down his face. He blinked a couple times, and wiped his eyes on his forearm. "You know I ain't much good with all this, Johnny," he said, "but don't ever think I don't... don't understand what you're saying. It means, well, I guess it means the whole world to me."

"Good, that's good." Johnny's voice sounded tight too, but Bull still couldn't look at him, not without blubbering. He closed his eyes, so it took him by surprise when Johnny caught his chin in his hand and tipped Bull's face up so that he could kiss away the tears caught on his eyelids and trickling down his cheeks. The table screeched against the floor as Johnny pushed it back, juttering the cups on the surface, and then Johnny was straddling Bull's lap, his arms around Bull's neck, kissing him for real.

Bull didn't mind the kissing, but mostly he just wanted to hold onto Johnny forever. He wrapped his arms around Johnny's shoulders and buried his face in his neck, and held on until he could breathe right again. It took a long time. Johnny didn't complain or try to wriggle away, just let Bull hold onto him. He had his lips against Bull's hair, and maybe he was even praying.

"I don't mean to keep falling apart like this," Bull said softly, and was glad the tremor was out of his voice this time.

Johnny kissed his hair again. "Way I hear it, men with purple hearts are entitled to complain about whatever they want. And you've had a hell of a year, pal."

That was true enough. When Bull had said Johnny and Pat were his whole world, it didn't mean as much as it sounded like it did. There wasn't a hell of a lot else in Bull's world besides them.

Finally, he was able to let go of Johnny, to understand in his heart as well as his head that he was here and alive, not the nightmare vision on the floor.

Johnny took another swallow from his mug, then dumped the rest in Bull's. "I'm going back to bed," he said. "You can come if you want."

Bull shook his head. "I won't sleep anyhow. I was thinking I'd maybe spend some time writing Guarnere. I ain't been keeping in touch with the guys, and I should do better at that."

"Say hello for me then," Johnny said, but he paused on the way out the door. "I know he'll probably work it out, but it'd be a favour if you didn't mention anything about helping out around here, all right?"

"How's that?" Being able to help with the bills was the one thing that Bull had thought he could be proud of.

Johnny sighed. "Bill and Frannie, they're stretched pretty thin themselves right now, so I ain't mentioned things are tight here, you know? 'Cause Ol' Wild Bill..."

"He'd cut off his good leg and mail it to you, if he thought it'd help," Bull concluded.

"Yeah, he would," Johnny agreed. "It kills me that he's still on the edge like that, and I won't have him making it no worse 'cause of me."

"All right," Bull said. He expected that Bill had figured it out anyway, same as Johnny had, but if those two wanted to do their little dance of not asking each other for any favours, he was happy to stay out of it.

He knew it had to be killing Johnny to see that his best friend could use a hand and to not be able to do a thing about it. The way Bull figured it, Johnny's most heartfelt fantasy was to live in a house that he'd built with his own two hands, one big enough that everyone he loved could come and stay with him whenever they needed or wanted to. Johnny wanted to be rich, not to prove that he'd won or to rub it in other men's faces—though Bull supposed that Johnny would indeed do that—but so that he would never see a friend in need and find himself unable to ease his suffering.

It was the same spirit that had seen Bull on his doorstep in the middle of the night, covered in blood with who knew what kind of trouble on his heels, and just held the door wider. It was the same spirit as the man who could scrounge anything from toothpaste to a tank on the black market if his buddies needed one, for no other reason than that they said they needed it. It was the same urge that had him in school and working weekends, and still worried that he wasn't providing enough for his family.

Bull drank his tea back in two long swallows and got up to go find some writing paper. If Johnny and Pat were his whole world right now, outside of a job he didn't particularly like, maybe Bull could do something to strengthen that, build up their ties to the folks around them. He would start with Bill, thank him for fielding Ma's letter, then maybe move on to Luz and a few other of the first platoon boys. Johnny would have their addresses.

Writing long letters didn't come easily to Bull—he was one of the few who'd appreciated the imposed brevity of v-mail—but he could do it if he worked at it, and he wanted to build a wall of friends around this little household, protection if any trouble ever came knocking.

* * *

Bull had thought that what he liked best was waking up with Pat curled up in his arms, only just awake but wanting her hands all over him, but he decided that he liked better waking up to Pat and Johnny's soft voices, and seeing them stand next to the bed kissing. Johnny had clearly just gotten back from school, and Pat was in a frayed grey house dress she wore when cleaning. Bull had only meant to have a short nap to make up for his morning awake, but had clearly missed a chunk of the day. He'd woken up for the good part, at least. He watched idly as Pat ran her hands through Johnny's hair and moaned into his kisses. He was grabbing her ass and trying to rub against her, but her belly got in the way for any real friction. Johnny's dick tented out the front of his pants, and Bull wanted to roll off the bed and kneel next to him so he could suck it.

Pat caught Bull looking out of the corner of her eye and turned to smile at him, Johnny looking with her. "Want to watch?" she asked.

"Yes," Bull said. He pulled the blankets around him and moved to the far edge of the bed, making space for them.

Johnny looked uncertain, like he wasn't sure about having an audience, and Bull just about offered to go find something else to do, and let them be, but then Johnny took a breath and turned back to Pat. He started unbuttoning her dress as he kissed her, and Bull watched as the cotton fell open and he caught a flash of the swell of Pat's breasts. They pressed forward, forcing the dress apart once Johnny had undone the restraining buttons, and Bull ached to cup them in his hands, or suck at Pat's nipples through her bra. Johnny didn't do that, just kissed her slowly as she moaned against him and unbuttoned the dress down to the tie at her waist.

Pat's hands were still in Johnny's hair, but her hips rolled forward and back as if he were fucking her already. Johnny slid his thigh between her legs so that she could grind against him. Bull loved how sensual Pat was, how openly she wanted them. How had she managed all those years when they were away? Bull couldn't imagine being celibate that long, but maybe if he'd had Johnny promising to come back to him, he would have been able to do it. Johnny, who had shrugged out of his jacket and was unbuttoning his own shirt now. He shook that off too, revealing a leanly muscled chest and shoulders even broader now than they'd been in the war.

Bull liked seeing them together, Johnny with his farmer's tan darkening his neck and hands, even this early in the year, but the skin of his arms and chest pale under his dark hair. Pat's skin had a honey colour to it that made Bull wonder if both her parents were entirely Irish, and that glowing smoothness to everything about her. She looked like a storybook princess Bull thought, and Johnny her rough and tumble soldier boy. Johnny certainly caressed her like he thought she was royalty. He reached down and gathered handfuls of her dress in his hands so that he could lift it over her head, and when she was standing there in just her bra and panties, he ran his hands up and down her sides, over her back, never breaking the kiss.

Pat was still grinding against Johnny's thigh, and Bull could see how wet her white cotton underwear had gotten, could see too how her breasts swelled against her bra, starting to overflow it even as her nipples pebbled and pushed against the fronts of the cups. Johnny pulled their bodies together so that they were chest to chest, and Bull couldn't figure how he could stand to leave that bra on. He didn't seem to mind it, anyhow. He unbuckled his trousers and pushed them down, kicking his pants and shoes off together, so that he was standing in just his underwear and socks. Pat's hips had started to move faster, and her voice pitched up as she rubbed herself against him. Bull wanted Johnny to lay her on the bed and make her go slow, take her time as Johnny touched her everywhere and drew her out, but she seemed most of the way to getting herself off without Johnny hardly touching her.

Finally Johnny unclasped her bra and slid it off her shoulders, letting the press of their bodies hold it on until Pat dismissively tossed it aside. Finally Bull could see her skin fully against his, and it almost felt as if he were being touched as well. He hugged the covers closer to himself and stared at the way her breasts flattened against Johnny's chest as he ran his hands up and down her back. Bull knew what that would feel like, the roughness of Johnny's palms against smooth skin, the insistence of Johnny's mouth on his. Pat let her head fall back and groaned as she kept working herself against Johnny's leg. He leaned in to kiss her throat, sucking to draw up little marks. The intensity of her pleasure raised perspiration on her forehead, making her dark hair cling. Her cries caught, and then stilled, and then she was panting in Johnny's arms, rubbing herself only fitfully against him. She was the most beautifully carnal thing Bull had ever seen, wild and unclaimable, but she let Johnny hold her and kiss her. She let Johnny guide her to the bed and lay her down on it, cradling her head like he was worried she was going to fall.

She was lying so close to Bull that he could smell her arousal; the sweet musk filled his nose and made him want to bury his face between her legs and lap her up. Johnny stood next to the bed, and slid her panties off, his eyes, like Bull's, fixed on the gleam of wetness between her legs. His dick pressed out against the front of his underwear, darkening it with a patch of pre-come.

Bull had to remind himself that they were letting him watch, but this wasn't something he was doing, this was Johnny and Pat, and he couldn't just grab Johnny and pin him down and suck his dick through his underwear. He shifted under the blankets, which were too hot now, in a way that made his lust feel sharper and more urgent.

Johnny looked down at Pat, laying naked and a little drowsy on the bed below him and shook his head. "You break my heart, every time I look at you, you know?"

"As long as I put it back together," Pat told him, and reached up, wanting to take him into her arms. Johnny pushed his underwear off and knelt between her legs, but instead of entering her right away, rested above her, gazing down into her eyes with the look of a man who would never understand how he could be so in love. She touched his face, trailing her knuckles across his cheek, and they kissed for a moment. Pat wrapped her legs around Johnny's thighs and tilted her hips up until she was guiding herself onto his cock. Johnny held steady as a rock, though Bull could see the tension singing through his body, the way his arms trembled and his breath came in sharp gasps. His eyes stayed fixed on Pat's face, but Bull couldn't stop watching the way Johnny's dick slid inside her as she pulled herself onto him. Pat's leg blocked Bull's view eventually, and then their bodies met, and Johnny let out a small sigh of relief and homecoming.

"You're perfect," Johnny told her, and then they started to move together. Pat's hands instinctively went to all the sensitive places Bull had spent a week mapping out, drawing out small cries, and hitching breath. Bull could see how Johnny was holding himself back, wanting to draw out their connection, make the moment stretch into forever, but Pat's body moved under him and kept urging him to give her more. She slid a hand between them and started to work her clit, moaning and bucking up against him each time she did.

Johnny wasn't strong enough to stand that for long, and soon he was rocking into Pat faster and without the even control of the start. His back gleamed with sweat, and Bull wanted to stroke down it, or maybe lick it, but he stayed where he was, watching their bodies come together and listening to the smack of skin on skin and their gasps and cries. Bull wanted them so badly it felt a little hypnotic to watch them and do nothing, not even touch himself. He was fully hard, and could have thrust against the covers or jerked himself off, but he didn't want to move or distract from what Johnny and Pat were doing. He wanted to lie there and watch them forever, and know that they were all there together, and this was really happening.

Finally, Pat cried out and clenched her legs around Johnny's ass, snapping him into her, and he swore and said her name, and then they both went still. Johnny lay there with his head on her chest, and Pat stroked his hair and stared up at the ceiling.

Then she turned and looked right at Bull, and he felt almost if he'd been caught out, even though they'd asked from the start. It felt like too private a thing to have witnessed, and Bull couldn't quite wrap his head around it all. They'd all touched every part of each other, but this had felt different, felt like that bond between Johnny and Pat that had formed years before Bull had even met Johnny, and would never really be any of his business. Every time he thought about it, a small part of him screamed with longing, but he'd tried to tell himself that he couldn't have everything, and should be grateful that he got anything from these two.

Making love in front of him could have felt like rubbing Bull's nose in all that, but it didn't. Instead he thought that Johnny and Pat were trying to share their connection with him, to expand it to include, or wrap him into them, like three strands of a rope twining around each other.

Pat let go of Johnny's shoulder and reached for Bull. He pushed the blankets down enough to take her hand and kiss it. It had been the one she'd been touching herself with and was slick with her come, so he took her fingers into his mouth and started to lick her clean. He could taste the sweet musk of her come, and the salt of her sweat as he played his tongue along her fingers and over the tips, sucking and rolling his lips like he had his mouth between her legs. Johnny lifted his head to watch, but didn't otherwise move. He was still inside Pat, and her legs were still wrapped around him. Bull wondered if they ever just lay together like that and made love for whole afternoons, coming some many times that their skin stuck together, and the start of his body and the end of hers lost all meaning.

When Bull was finished sucking the come off Pat's fingers, she pulled her hand out of his mouth and patted his cheek. "We should do something for you, too," she said.

Johnny chuckled and rolled off of Pat so that his back was to Bull. Pat rolled on her side to follow him, staying face to face. Johnny waited for Bull to make a move, and when he didn't, said, "You wanna do my legs, or what?"

"Oh, jeeze, with an offer like that," Pat commented, but Bull pushed the covers off himself and edged close to Johnny. He reached out and ran his hand down Johnny's side.

Johnny was as overheated as he was, his skin slippery with sweat. Between his legs would probably be slick enough on their own to make it easy for Bull's dick to slide between them. Johnny had screwed Bull like this before, with the aid of some slick, but they hadn't gone the other way. Bull hesitated. If Johnny hadn't liked being screwed, would he like this? He'd promised he'd say if he didn't, and he had offered, so Bull supposed he'd have to take Johnny at his word. He slid his hand off its resting place on Johnny's hip down to his knee and lifted his leg enough to make room.

"It'd be better with some slick," Bull commented, not sure which one of them he was talking to.

"Here," Pat said, and slid her hand between her own legs, then reached between Johnny's and spread her come and his across the insides of his thighs.

"Jesus Christ," Johnny muttered, and though Bull didn't say anything the casual bawdiness of it made his head spin. It worked though. When he slid his hips forward so that his dick lay between Johnny's thighs, it was easy to rock against Johnny's body. Bull kept his hand on Johnny's knee, pushing it down so that his legs clamped around Bull's cock.

Bull kissed Johnny's shoulders and started to rock against him, breath coming in short huffs as he did. He'd gotten so riled up from watching them together that he already felt right on the edge, the whole room too hot and close as his skin sizzled with want. He could feel his lust coiling up inside him like a living thing, driving him forward into Johnny's body, the smooth slide of his dick between Johnny's thighs just as good as being inside him. He looked over Johnny's shoulder to Pat, and saw she was holding Johnny's hands and watching both of them.

Johnny wasn't making much noise, just passively taking Bull's cock, but he didn't seem to be distressed, just listless from having come, and willing to go along with whatever Bull and Pat wanted. Bull let go of his knee and wrapped his arm around Johnny's chest so that he could pull him close, even as he kept kissing Johnny's shoulders and neck. He knew he was probably clinging too hard, making too much of himself, but the urge to bury himself in Johnny until Bull wasn't himself any more, but part of someone else swept through him even as urgency built inside him. He felt almost savagely possessive of the man in his arms, but not as if he could possess him. Bull couldn't put a name to what he felt, so he just held onto Johnny and slid his cock back and forth between his thighs until his pleasure crested, and he spilled.

Pat leaned forward so that she could take Johnny in her arms, she kissed his face as Bull kept kissing his shoulders. He expanded his embrace to include Pat, rubbing circles on her back as he lay there trying to catch his breath. He wanted to thank Johnny for letting Bull take him like that, but knew if he made a fuss about it, he'd just embarrass Johnny, and probably himself, so he just said, "I like holding you."

Johnny had his face buried between Pat's breasts, but made an indistinct sound of agreement. Pat ruffled his hair and leaned in to kiss Bull over his head. "I like holding both of you," she said when they parted. "My beautiful boys."

Over and over Bull had promised them that there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for them, and that would always be true, but he wondered if what they wanted most from him was to let them look after him for a change. He wished he knew how to let go and let them do that, instead of constantly fretting about a thousand things that could go wrong. It seemed like he could in moments like this, when they were touching him, but once he was standing up and facing the world, Bull didn't know how not to fear it.

"Wish we could just stay here," he said plaintively. Everything felt simple when they were in bed. Bull knew how to please them, and they wanted to let him, and to touch him in return.

"I know," Pat said. She cradled Johnny's head against her breasts, and smiled at Bull. "Some days, I just want to tie you to the bed and spend all day messing around with you."

Bull had a very clear picture of what that might involve, and rolled his hips against Johnny's ass, even though he wasn't close to hard again. "Couldn't say as I'd object," he said.

Johnny lifted his head and squirmed around to face Bull. "Really?" he asked, sounding intrigued. "You would let us, well Patty, do that to you?"

"Wouldn't be the first time," Bull said, though he really hadn't gone in for that kind of thing much before. "Don't often find folk I'd trust to do it, but you and Pat could, if you wanted."

"So, I was joking," Pat said, "but now that you mention it..."

Johnny groaned. "I've got a paper due Friday, and an exam, tomorrow."

"I've got receipts to log, and Jenny did something unaccountable with the accounts payable," Pat said and started to disentangle herself from the bed. "And it looks like I need to change the sheets, again, but someday."

"Someday," Bull agreed, and he knew it would tug on his thoughts until they found time for it. It was time to get up though. He'd meant to do more with his day off than lounge around in bed. He got up too, and helped strip and remake the bed while Johnny showered. Neither of them bothered to dress, and Bull kept looking across at Pat and smiling like it was the first time he'd ever been with someone he loved. She smiled when she saw his smiles, and that felt good too.


	8. Chapter 8

On the morning of Good Friday, Bull got that final, chilling confirmation of his exile.

It came wrapped in a gift, which he supposed fit for his Ma. She'd always been a teaspoon of sugar kind of woman. Bull wished that he hadn't had to open it in front of Johnny and Pat, but it followed that he'd have had to let them know eventually.

Or perhaps not. If Bull had just never mentioned his family again, it would have made a certain kind of sense. From one perspective, he didn't have a family any more: no ma, no sisters, no nieces and nephews; all those cousins, the ones he'd liked and the ones he hadn't, they were all gone, too, with no possibility of recovery. Ma had been apologetic, but unequivocal, and Bull supposed he understood. She thought he would be a danger to the others, so she'd cut him out same as a medic would lance a boil.

At least she'd said that she wouldn't tell anyone where Bull was. It had seemed more like shame than protectiveness, but the end result was the same.

Worst of all, she'd said she'd pray for him.

Johnny'd tried to console Bull with all the focused affection he could summon, every kiss desperate to remind Bull that he had a place here in Johnny's home, even if no one else in the world wanted him. Bull had let him, had responded even, and it'd helped for a time, but then Johnny had needed to go to his classes, and Bull found himself in an empty house unable to continue even pretending to sleep.

He got out of bed and dressed in pants and a shirt before padding outside to stand on the back porch. It was a fitful spring day, and the wind off the river kept carrying bursts of rain. Too cold to sit outside, really, but the fresh air helped clear Bull's head a little.

He fished through his pocket for Ma's letter. He didn't read it again. He knew what it said, and didn't want to burn it into his memory by pouring over it again and again. Each time would only hurt more anyway.

Bull curled his body around the letter to protect it from the wind and spitting rain, then held his lighter up to the corner and flicked it open. The flame flickered and wavered in the wind, but finally caught hold of the paper, licking up towards Bull's hand until the heat scorched him and he had to let the wind take the page. It swirled out into the yard until only a chard corner remained to tumble against the fence. Bull considered going to get it, but a rush of sudden rain melted the cheap paper into the grass. He shook his head and went inside to warm up.

"Well, that's done," he said as he closed the door behind him. He imagined the latch clicking was the sound of shutting out his whole past. It was all gone now, everything that had made him the man he was, all the joy and tears and frustration, all the love.

Bull wandered around the tiny house, trying to work out what to do with the emotions roiling inside of him. He'd never sleep, even though he hadn't yet, and had work that night. He wanted to scream, but probably couldn't do that either without bringing the neighbours down on him. He'd felt a little like this after Normandy, the itching feeling of needing to race away so fast that he left himself behind. Back then, he'd gone out with Bill and Johnny and gotten blazingly drunk and started a bunch of fights in bars across England and Scotland. Bull was too old to raise that kind of hell now, and he'd told Mr. Wilson he wasn't the kind of guy who got into fights much.

Bull _wasn't_ the kind of man who got into fights much, not outside the army, anyway, but he wanted to start one now. He could feel it simmering through him every time he thought about that letter, about what his whole family was willing to do to him, about what he himself was. Bull hadn't thought that he had much doubt about the kind of man he was any more—he'd long ago stopped questioning what God might have made him like this—but now it felt different. What was the old saying: "The kind of face only a mother could love"?

Finding himself in the living room, his pacing having carried him in several circuits of the house, Bull sank onto the couch and put his face in his hands. He should probably just weep at the loss and get it over with, but he couldn't feel any tears inside him, just anger and bewilderment. He wanted to cry out to the heavens that it wasn't fair, that he hadn't done anything to deserve this, but of course he had, and maybe he did. Maybe Bull was as mired in sin as Ma thought he was. "Only a mother could love".

Bull didn't really know how much time passed before he heard the front door open. The click of low heels in the hall, followed by a thud they were kicked away told him it had to be late enough for Pat to be off work. A softer tread padded into the master bedroom: Pat looking either for him or for her slippers. She came out a moment later, and found him. Bull knew how pathetic he must look, slumped on the couch seemingly unable to look up. He wished he could give a better showing for her—suck it up and pretend that none of it mattered, that she and Johnny could be enough for him—but he couldn't summon the effort.

"Oh, sweetie," Pat said as she sank onto the couch next to him. Her arm was warm where she wrapped it around the small of his back. "How are you holding up?"

Bull didn't want to answer her, at least, he didn't want to tell the truth, and he didn't want to lie, which left silence the best option.

Pat rested her head on his shoulder and sighed softly. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I wish it wasn't like this."

"Me too," Bull said. He hadn't considered that there was much more to say about it than that, but Pat's quiet sympathy seemed to draw words up out of a reservoir of resentment. "Knew that's what she'd say. Why I put off writing long as I did, but I still... I'm a goddamn fool, Patty, but I still hoped it'd be something else."

"I know," Pat said. She squeezed him tight against her, her other hand finding his knee. "It isn't... you aren't wrong for hoping, Denver."

It occurred to him that Pat was probably the only soul in the world who'd ever again call him by the name Ma'd given him, and a sob welled up from the depths of his soul, shaking loose of his chest, and tearing up through his throat. He tried to push it back down—to not fall apart in front of Pat, to not prove himself so weak that he couldn't get news he had coming without weeping—but he couldn't keep it inside him like he had in the face of all the blows that had rocked him during the war.

Bull's shoulders started to shake, and once they started, he couldn't seem to stop them. He closed his hands over his mouth to keep from wailing, but it wasn't enough to hold his moan of grief inside.

Pat's hands were insistent on his shoulders, and Bull didn't have it in him to resist. He let her pull him down until he was curled up on the couch with his face buried in her lap. Pat was saying something, but from the soft pitch of her voice, he figured it didn't matter. All that did matter was the softness of her thigh under his face and the sweet smell of her: soap, some kind of flowery perfume, the musk of a day's work. Pat was stroking his back, resting her hand in his hair. She was so kind to him, it didn't feel like it ought to be something that was happening to him..

Eventually, Bull quieted. It turned out there was only so long a body could cry, even when he thought his heart was breaking. When he ran out of tears, Bull lay with his face pressed against Pat's leg, and tried to work out what he was going to do next. She was still rubbing her hand up and down his back, which felt awfully nice, and he'd like her to keep it up, if only it didn't feel so humiliating to have fallen apart like that. He wasn't sure how he was going to be able to look her in the eye, but he also didn't want to just lie here forever.

Bull sniffed loudly and pushed himself up until he was sitting next to Pat again, then busied himself with wiping his eyes and blowing his nose so that he didn't have to see the pity on his face. Bull could never figure how womenfolk said that crying made a body feel better. All he felt was red and swollen. His eyes ached, and his throat felt raw, and worst of all he still wanted to scream.

Pat let him finish wiping his face, then swung her legs over his so that she was sitting sideways in his lap with her head on his chest. Bull wrapped his arms around her, and buried his face in her hair, breathing in her scent.

"I know it's not much when you look at the whole picture," Pat said, finally, "but Johnny and I love you."

"That is the whole picture," Bull told her, a little hoarse from crying, but otherwise surprising even himself with his steadiness. "I don't know what I'd do without you two, and that's a fact."

He tried to imagine a life where he'd taken a different bus that day, or where Johnny had sensibly turned him away, and Bull'd had to face up to this whole thing all alone. He didn't think it would have broken him, but there might have been drinking and starting fights, so maybe it would have. He was glad Pat was snuggled against him so that he still didn't have to let her see meet his eye. The Randlemans looked awful when they cried: all pink splotches and swollen noses, worse than a pack of drunks. If he'd been just a drunk that probably would have been okay by Ma and the rest. Bull should have been more careful when he'd chosen his vices.

It was hard to have Pat Martin in his lap, the sweet smell of her hair in his face, and think of her as a vice. Just that morning, it had been Johnny holding him close and promising Bull his heart, and that hadn't felt like a sin, either. It was probably the purest love Bull would ever know. Here he was with not one but two people wrapping themselves around him to comfort him. Bull didn't always feel like he'd done much in the way of deserving it, but he wasn't going to toss all this away and call it trash now that he had it.

"Thank you," he said, he thought about whether to ask for this next favour, before deciding that she could always say no. "I'd rather if you didn't tell Johnny I'm taking this so rough."

Pat leaned back so that she could look at him, letting his embrace keep her from falling off his lap. "He wouldn't think any less of you if he knew."

Bull shook his head. He supposed that Johnny probably wouldn't outright think of Bull as a sissy; Lord knew Bull had done his best to hold Johnny together when he'd spun apart after Bill had gotten hit. Still. "It'd just piss him off, is all it'd do to tell him," Bull said finally. "He's got enough battles to fight without taking on none of mine. Ain't nothing to do about it, anyhow."

"All right," Pat said, and leaned back against Bull's chest. "I'll leave it between the two of you, but he isn't stupid. You know that."

"I do," Bull agreed. He probably was fooling himself that he could hide how hard this had shaken him from his best friend, but they weren't likely to see much of each other before Sunday afternoon anyway, so that might help with giving Bull enough time to pull himself together. As if there could be enough time in the world to do anything about this.

"You should try to get some sleep," Pat said. She reached down and toyed with the hem of Bull's shirt, not quite slipping her hand under it to touch his chest, but indicating that she wasn't opposed to the idea.

Bull thought about letting her try to do what Johnny had done for him earlier: kiss and caress and fuck away his pain until he couldn't think of anything but how much he loved the person letting him share their bed. It hadn't worked before though, and he didn't expect it would work this time either. He didn't have the energy, anyway. He also didn't want to let go of Pat. Bull would suggest staying where they were, except his leg had started to fall asleep. Pat probably had work to do, and didn't need to spend the day minding after him. He stood, keeping his arms around her as she slid off his lap so that they ended up standing face to face in front of the couch.

Standing made him feel dizzy, or maybe that was that he really was tired. Bull couldn't tell what he felt any more. Mostly he felt like the whole world was pushing him down towards the floor, and the only thing keeping him upright was Pat's hand pressed over his heart.

Bull swayed for a moment, then pulled away from Pat and trudged into the bedroom. He pulled his shirt off, but before he could do anything about his pants, Pat was kneeling in front of him, undoing his fly and pushing them off his hips. At any other time, the sight of a beautiful woman kneeling in front of him would have kicked Bull's brain off and his dick on, but he couldn't muster the interest in even that right now. He stepped out of his pants, and wavered. He should just get back in the bed, and the sleep he'd been avoiding. The bed still smelled faintly of his and Johnny's lovemaking that morning.

Pat looked up at him, a question in her eyes, and when he couldn't answer it she wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed him tight, pressing her face against his ribs. "Jesus H. Christ, I want to slap your mother," she muttered.

Bull laughed; he had to. He could just see tiny, pregnant Pat Martin going up against his mother, full of righteous fury, though he didn't like how it ended either way. He stroked her hair, then held out his hands to pull her up. It still felt strange to stand nearly naked in front of her, but she didn't even seem to notice now, instead pushing at his chest until he sat on the edge of the bed, and she could bend to kiss him. Bull knew his mouth must taste of salt, but she didn't seem to mind, making the kiss lingering and deep enough that despite his exhaustion, his body did start to tell him that he was in a bed, and someone he wanted very much was there with him.

Pat ran her hand down his chest, rubbing the pad of her thumb over his nipple, sending a jolt of pleasure through his body. "Do you want to...?" she asked.

"I'd better sleep," Bull said, but he didn't want her to leave, either.

"I'll sit with you a while," she told him, and he was glad she hadn't made it a question.

"Thank you." Bull curled into bed, and Pat tucked the covers tight around him, like no one had since he'd been small, and then sat next to his shoulder and rested her hand on his hair, stroking it ever so lightly.

Bull couldn't have imagined that he'd ever sleep again, but it was only a few moments before exhaustion pulled him under.

* * *

He woke up alone in a room dark enough that it had to be well into the evening. Bull had missed Johnny coming home from school and probably dinner as well, though he smelled something like onions and hot oil. He felt like his head was stuffed full of cotton, so he went and washed his face in cold water. Squinting into the bathroom mirror, he mostly looked okay. His hair was standing up at odd angles, and his eyes were a little red, but Bull didn't think it was obvious that he'd dedicated an afternoon to weeping like a child.

At least he'd only made a fool out of himself in front of Pat. Women didn't seem to mind that kind of thing as much. Though he wondered if she'd think less of him, or find him less reliable because she knew what it took to break him. Bull ought to be the one protecting her. She deserved someone to look after her, not to have to coddle her... Bull wasn't even sure what he was: friend, lover, affair? He smiled at the idea of being Johnny's mistress, and that made his reflection look better.

Bull finger-combed water through his hair until it sat flat on his scalp. By the time he'd dressed for work, he thought he looked reasonably close to normal, or at least less like he'd just been dragged in out of a gutter. He made sure to scuff his boots on the floor when he went into the kitchen, not wanting to walk in on another conversation about himself. He'd had about all the worry he could handle for the day, or maybe the rest of his life.

They were sitting at the kitchen table playing footsie anyway, but as Bull came in they both got up, their chairs scraping back with one sound. Johnny was closer and faster. He crossed the space to the kitchen doorway in two long strides, wrapped his arms around Bull's neck and hopped up, circling his waist with his legs. Bull fell back against the jamb, half the wind driven out of him, but managed to get a hold of Johnny's ass, holding him up as Johnny thoroughly and comprehensively kissed him.

Pat was standing at the table, leaning over forward to brace herself as she laughed at them, but Bull didn't pay that any mind. He held Johnny against him and let him make a mess out of his freshly tamed hair. Johnny's mouth was hot on his, his tongue in Bull's mouth from the get go, like he was trying to merge them into one person with just a kiss. He let go of Bull's hair and dragged his nails down Bull's neck and back. He would have fallen if Bull hadn't planted a hand in the middle of Johnny's back to hold him up.

Bull had been worried that it would be all sympathy and soft glances full of pity, and which he didn't know if he'd have been to stand, but instead it seemed like Johnny was just going to out and out show Bull how much he liked him, which he thought he could just about live with.

"Dinner's getting cold," Pat commented after a while.

"Sure," Johnny said. Bull gave his ass an extra squeeze before lowering him back to the floor. They smiled at each other, and this time it didn't feel like he was forcing his face into a shape it didn't recognise.

Johnny went to clear his books off the table while Pat got the plates out of the cupboard. She'd made spaghetti and meatballs and salad, and Bull wolfed them down gratefully. He hadn't thought about being hungry until he had food in front of him, when it seemed as if suddenly his body had needs again.

"Don't forget about Sunday," Pat said out of the blue, and Bull tried to remember what Sunday was about. Johnny sighed and stabbed a meatball so hard it split in half. "Easter," Pat added. "You're taking a half day off, aren't you?"

"I'm taking a whole day off," Johnny grumbled. "Even Frank O'Connell won't work on Easter Sunday."

"All right," Pat said, mollified, "And it'll be early enough that Denver can still go to work."

Bull had forgotten about that dinner with Pat's folks. He considered pleading something to get out of it, though he wasn't entirely sure what would do the trick. Probably, at this point, he could just look sad and put upon, and Pat would feel bad for him and let him be. But he couldn't do that to her, and didn't want to be a shirker in any case. He sighed, and Johnny met his eyes and shrugged.

"You're part of our family now, Denver," Pat said. "You should meet my parents."

Meet them and lie to them, but what else could he do? "All right," Bull said, and let it rest at that. He liked the part about being their family anyway.

Johnny pulled a face, but didn't say anything against it, just gathered up the plates and started in on the dish.

Pat took over the easy chair in the living room, and Bull was about to sit on the couch when she asked, "Rub my feet?"

"Course," Bull said, and knelt in front of her.

She was wearing stockings, and Bull ran his hands up her leg until he found the buttons for first one than the other. He liked the smooth feel of the nylon sliding down over her skin. He rubbed up and down her calves a couple times. From the way her toes curled, Pat didn't mind the detour. Bull took her foot in his lap and worked his thumbs into the arch, smiling to himself as she moaned softly and pressed into his touch. She rested her other foot on his stomach, kneading her toes against it like a cat.

"Remember the first time you did that?" Johnny asked. Bull hadn't even noticed him come in, but he was standing behind Pat with his hand on her shoulder like the patriarch in one of those old family pictures.

"I remember thinking I was going to be in real trouble if I didn't smarten up some," Bull said. He'd felt the shiver of desire running through them both, then too, but had told himself that Johnny was right there, and therefore it was okay. It wasn't as if anything was going to happen. Until it happened.

"Me too," Pat said, leaning her cheek against Johnny's hand. "Lord, I wanted you."

"I liked how you looked together," Johnny said. "Always liked that, having you two under my roof, even before I figured out the rest of it."

Bull should probably mind how Johnny's possessiveness stretched to encompass him, but he found he didn't. As he set Pat's right foot down on his stomach and took up her left, he decided that he liked the feeling of belonging that came on the other side of Johnny's pride of ownership. Maybe being Johnny's mistress wasn't the worst way to see it, except that he was Pat's too. However he looked at it, that at least made him someone's something.

Johnny sat down next to Bull and leaned against him, watching Pat as Bull rubbed her feet. Pat lolled her head against the back of the chair, and looking up from this angle looked foreshortened her, and made her seem all gentle curves in pale colours. Bull finished his massage, but instead of putting her foot down, leaned in and kissed the ball, and then the arch, and then Pat's ankle.

Pat murmured in appreciation, so Bull kept going. He rubbed his cheek against her calf, and kissed the inside of her knee, pushing back her skirt as he went. Her inner thigh felt like heaven under his lips as he trailed kisses up it. There were small red marks from someone leaving love bites there, but he honestly couldn't remember if it'd been him or Johnny that'd made them. Something in that thought struck him as terribly funny. Bull let his face fall forward until his brow rested on the edge of the chair, and started to laugh. Pat's skirt fell forward to cover his head, which only struck him as funnier.

"Oh, dear," Pat murmured, but she curled her foot up to rub his back and patted Bull's head through the cloth of the skirt.

"You okay, Bull?" Johnny asked, resting a hand on Bull's hip to steady him.

Bull shook his head, but knew if he tried to answer it would just make it worse. He didn't even know what had suddenly struck him as funny, other than the ludicrousness of the whole situation, of his whole life, now that he thought of it. He wrapped his arms around one of Pat's legs and pressed his face to the bend of her knee and laughed. He probably owed Pat some kind of apology, for starting her up and then leaving off in a fit of giggles, but that couldn't be helped.

He felt the edge of hysteria creep in and forced himself to take a deep breath and stop. He could do that. He needed to do that. Bull lifted his head until Pat's skirt fell away, then leaned forward sp that he could rest his cheek against her stomach. The baby kicked restlessly in response to the contact, and Bull almost started laughing again, but managed to keep it contained this time.

"Dunno what's wrong with me," he said weakly.

Pat ran her fingers through his hair, and Johnny patted him on the back and said, "I can think of a few things."

"Side from all that," Bull protested.

"There's nothing wrong with you," Pat said, more seriously than Bull would have liked. "Not a blessed thing."

"Amen to that," Johnny agreed, and leaned forward to rest his forehead between Bull's shoulders. "Other than..."

It was a bit of a reach for her, but Pat still managed to smack Johnny across the ear, making Johnny laugh.

Bull had to go to work soon, and should untangle himself from all this. He was going to spend the rest of the night standing on his own two feet, not curled up being petted and told he was a good boy.

He stroked his cheek against Pat's stomach, before pushing himself up. Johnny collapsed against Pat's legs. "I'll just let you finish what I started," Bull told him. It was easy enough to imagine Johnny kissing up the inside of Pat's thigh, maybe leaving a trail of those little marks until he could lick her out. "Figure you could use the practice."

"We'll see about that," Johnny said.

"Will we?" Pat asked with a smile.

It was nice to know that when Bull left the house Johnny would be there to look after her, and when Johnny left Bull was already back. Maybe it led to none of them seeing each other all at the same time, but it set his mind at ease. The dream from the week before still lingered, and besides that who knew what trouble a pregnant woman could find herself in, far better that one of them stay near her.

They kissed him goodbye with more tenderness than Bull expected, each of them lingering like he was leaving for war, not a night shift at the rail yards. Bull was glad, as always, to have those memories close to his heart. They more than his heavy jacket and gloves kept him warm all night long.

* * *

It rained that night, and Bull came home wet and cold and very tired. Johnny was just on the way out the door to his roofing job, not looking like he was expecting much out of life, but stopped to take Bull's hand between his.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, and unhesitatingly put Bull's hands under his shirt to warm them against his sides. His skin felt shockingly hot under Bull's touch, and he could only imagine what Johnny must feel in reverse, but he didn't flinch or let any discomfort show on his face.

"I'm pouring you a bath," Pat said, and went to do that. She was in her work clothes, and it took Bull a moment to remember that she was changing her shifts to Saturdays in order to have Monday off. Pat wanted to spend more time with him, and was altering her life to do it.

Reluctantly, Bull pulled his hands out from under Johnny's shirt. What he wanted to do was take both Johnny and Pat to bed and let them warm him up, but the reality of the situation was that they had to go to work, and Bull would spend the day sleeping and rattling around the house. Hopefully, Pat would get back from work before he woke up.

Johnny was still holding his hands, and now brought them up to his mouth to kiss them, but stopped midway there. "Something happen?"

Bull had just about forgotten that he had bruised his knuckles. "Just some punks," he said, "pack of 'em were trying to lift crates outta the cars."

"You all right?" Johnny demanded. He looked about ready to strip Bull right then and there, and check him over like he had that first night.

"Quit your fussing," Bull said. "I knocked a few heads together, is all. They didn't touch me."

Johnny gave him a narrow look, but let it drop. He kissed Pat on the way out the door, and then was gone for the day. Bull figured he'd come back as wet and worn out as could be, and they wouldn't say more than five words together.

He went into the bathroom and found Pat pouring something into the water that filled the room with a floral scent so heady it made Bull think it was spiked with something. He started to undress. His clothes weren't soaked through, the poncho had spared him that, but he had gotten damp clean to his bones and everything felt cold and clinging, like a second skin he ought to have shed long since. When Bull bent to deal with his bootlaces, something popped in his back, a tensed muscle releasing, maybe, and he sighed in relief.

Pat was close enough that he could bump his forehead against her shin, and even that felt impossibly warm. She was wearing perfume for work, and had an entirely different heady floral scent to her. He felt Pat's hand in his hair, straightening the damp curls with her fingernails, and he closed his eyes. This was right.

It was too cold to just crouch at her feet in his skivvies though. Bull finished stripping and went to step into the bath, which was so narrow that his hips rubbed the sides of the tub. The water was a little too hot at first, but he forced himself into it anyway, knowing how it would feel better in a moment. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. The tub really wasn't big enough, and not nearly enough of his body was actually covered in hot water, but it still felt like heaven come to Earth.

Opening his eyes, Bull found the situation had improved: Pat had stripped out of her jacket and skirt, and was bending to sit on the edge of the tub in just her stockings and blouse. The steam from the bath was already pulling her hair out of its little chignon and curling it around her face. Her powder would probably start to cake in a moment, too, but Pat didn't seem to mind. Instead she took a cloth and started to run it up and down Bull's back. She wasn't really washing him so much as spreading the warmth of the water over his skin.

"I can look to that, Patty," Bull said halfheartedly. He really couldn't think of a good reason to ask her to stop. She ignored him, humming tunelessly as she ran the cloth up and down his back, then over his shoulders and around the back of his neck. Bull slumped forward against his legs and let her do what she liked. Pat poured water over his hair with a dipper, and worked soap in until the suds ran down his body. They were darker than he thought they should be, but then coal dust got everywhere, whether you worked the mine cars or not.

Some of the soreness that had plagued his muscles since the beating seemed to fade for the first time under Pat's touch, or maybe it was just that he hadn't noticed it was gone until then. Bull tried not to look at the bruises too much, but they had been fading to green and yellow splotches lately, the pain diminishing to a memory of itself. Pat seemed to remember where they were though, and her hand followed the outlines of them, soothing his skin with the warm cloth. He wondered if she noticed what she was doing, or if it was just habit by now. Bull thought he liked one idea as much as the other. Then her fingertip traced the line on his shoulder made by that German tank shell, and Bull shivered.

He expected her to ask about it again, but she didn't. Instead, Pat said, "I don't like it when you have to fight. Didn't like it when Johnny did, either."

"Part of the job," Bull told her. He lifted his shoulder as much to press back against her touch as to shrug. "Wouldn't hire a watchman if there weren't nothing to watch for."

"Guess not," Pat admitted, but her fingers stayed on the old scar, and she didn't sound very happy. "Maybe it's catching, all the worrying you two heroes do."

"Might could be it is," Bull agreed, but he didn't look down at the bruises on his knuckles. The truth was he didn't want to grow to be one of those old men with cauliflower ears whose hands didn't close right because they'd broken their fingers too many times to count. He didn't want to be the hulking shadow among shadows whose role in life was to frighten children, even profoundly stupid ones. "Could be I got more than my fill of fighting already."

"You've earned a break," Pat said, and leaned down to kiss the top of his head. Her lipstick smudged, and a bit of soap clung to her nose, but Bull wouldn't have tipped her off to that for anything. "I'm glad Johnny met you," she said, "so I guess I'm glad you went, but it sure does seem like you've done enough."

Enough. Not enough. Too much. Too little. Bull never could tell what the right way to sum up what his wartime service might be. He just knew that the whole thing made him ache deep in some hollow place behind his heart. "I'm glad I met Johnny, too," he said, "more than I can say."

He shifted in the bath, forcing his body down so that he lay on his back with his feet bunched up under the taps. The displaced water came close to sloshing into Pat's leg, but she got out of the way just in time. "We need a bigger tub," she muttered.

For all that he felt like he was trying out to be a contortionist, the warm water and Pat's company were soothing Bull into a kind of drowsiness. "I'd like to give that to you," he said.

Pat laughed. She was stepping back into her skirt, getting ready to leave him. "A new bath?" she asked.

"A new house," Bull said dreamily. "A big house that me and Johnny built for you, with a big bed and a big bath, and all the hot water in the world. Enough rooms that all the babies you and Johnny have can get their own, and whoever you like can stay over."

Pat didn't comment for so long that Bull thought he'd said something wrong and somehow upset her. When he looked over from his vague gaze at the ceiling, she had her back to him, doing up her jackets and trying to smooth her hair.

"Pat?" he asked, pushing himself upright again. His skin squeaked against the sides of the tub, making a terrible noise.

When Pat turned she had tears in her eyes. "It's a nice dream," she said, sounding like she was about to start crying properly.

"I mean it," Bull said, though he hadn't before he'd said it aloud. That had been Johnny's dream, but Bull didn't think there was any reason he couldn't be part of making it happen. He probably looked pretty ridiculous sitting there naked in a bathtub barely big enough to justify the name, promising to scatter diamonds at the feet of someone else's wife. Bull didn't care. He did mean it, and that was what mattered.

"Oh, Denver," she said, and leaned down to kiss him, steadying herself with a hand in his wet hair. "I don't need all that. All I need is you and Johnny."

"That ain't no matter," Bull said solemnly, "it's what I want to do for you."

Pat shook her head slightly, and didn't say anything else before she dashed out the door to work.

As Bull finished washing up, he tried to think up how the hell he was going to keep that promise. Though, that evening, as he watched Johnny drag himself in and collapse into the shower, Bull couldn't see how construction business was that much of a good deal either, besides that when he was done with the day, a man had built something that wasn't there before, something someone needed. Bull was willing to work however hard he had to to get something like that. If he and Johnny were working together, Bull would have more than a few minutes to hold him before he had to head out for work again. They hadn't spent a whole night curled up together since the war, and that hadn't been the same as it would be now.

As it was, he headed out for his next shift, not feeling very much rested, mind still spinning through what possibilities his life might and might not hold.

It wasn't until the first gleam of dawn on Easter morning, just as Bull was walking home, that it occurred to him that the reason he might be so intent on building a new home could have something to do with the recent total loss of the old.


	9. Chapter 9

Pat was at church when Bull got back from work, the dawn service on Easter Sunday. Johnny said he'd go to the second one, though he didn't say it with much enthusiasm.

"Pat's folks go to that church?" Bull asked around a mouthful of pancakes. They seemed to be Johnny's first choice to make for breakfast when he was fretting after something.

"Nah, they go to the big one on the other side of town," Johnny said, then muttered probably low enough that he didn't intend Bull to hear, "Not far away enough."

If there'd been less on the table, Bull thought he might have enjoyed spending an afternoon watching Johnny have to play nice with people he so clearly disliked, but that would only be amusing so long as their gaze didn't swing to Bull, which he expected wouldn't take a hell of a lot of time.

"Any way I can make a good impression?" Bull asked.

Johnny slammed down into the seat across from him and gave Bull a critical once over before stabbing a fork full of pancakes and shoving them into his mouth. "Not hardly."

Bull sighed. "How're we getting over there?"

"Pat's dad'll pick us up," Johnny grumbled, and Bull suppressed a smile at his obvious car envy.

"Guess I better get some sleep then," was all Bull ended up saying. "Real sleep," he added off Johnny's speculative look.

"Gotta go to church anyway."

"Never thought you were much for that," Bull commented. He'd seen Johnny pray a couple of times, but they'd been foxhole prayers, and they didn't mean much in the scope of things.

Johnny shrugged. "Way I figure it, the Episcopal Dioceses of Ohio don't approve of me—or they wouldn't if they knew anything about me—so I don't see no reason to approve of them back."

Bull thought about asking if Johnny's assessment of the church extended to God Himself, but figured he could guess the answer. He thought about that old saw to the effect of making a place for the Lord in your heart, which had always made him wonder why on Earth the Lord would want to stay in a place like his heart. Ma'd given his mouth a good rinse with washing powder for expressing something in that line as a child, and since then Bull'd kept his opinions to himself. "Reckon I feel about the same."

"I go Christmas and Easter for Patty's sake," Johnny said. He was still in his shorts and robe, and would take some putting together to be ready to go anywhere, let alone an Episcopalalian church on a high holy day. He let his head fall into his hands, which was probably a shade better than letting his head fall into the syrup-covered plate. "I don't want to go."

Bull ran his hand down Johnny's arm and squeezed his elbow. "It'll make Pat happy," he said. "Even if I'd rather you stayed here and bedded down with me for a spell."

Johnny looked up suddenly, and said, "Funny thing, Bull: I was just thinking I'd like that more than anything in the whole damn world."

"Some other time." Though Bull couldn't say exactly when that might be. He'd be home the next two nights, but he'd also sleep on the floor before he kicked Pat out her bed, and that didn't leave much time he and Johnny had in common.

Bull got up and made a point of stretching and yawning before trudging off to bed. He could get the better part of the day to sleep in, before he had to go out and face down Pat's parents.

He was worn out enough that he just slept straight through to early afternoon, waking up with Johnny curled in his arms, sleeping like a rock.

Bull opened his eyes and held very still, drawing in the scent of Johnny's hair. He wanted to sink back into sleep, this time warmed by the idea of having one of the people he loved best all to himself, but he could tell from the light in the curtains that they'd have to get up soon. Still, Bull couldn't resist kissing the back of Johnny's neck at the same time he slid his hand under his shirt and ran it over his stomach.

Johnny murmured happily in his sleep and snuggled back against Bull, wiggling his ass over Bull's dick to the point where Bull started to wonder if maybe they'd have time for something in all this. He ran his hand down Johnny's stomach and toyed with the hem of his shorts. That woke Johnny up enough to say something encouraging, and things would have proceeded nicely from there if Pat hadn't come in and thrown Bull's mended suit jacket at his head. One of the buttons got Johnny right in the nose.

"All right, all right," Johnny grumbled, and rolled away from Bull. "We're going."

A moment later Bull figured out the reason for Johnny's alacrity as the shower kicked on, and he understood himself to have been outrun. He got up and stretched, trying to pop loose all the tired muscles in his back and shoulders. He didn't know exactly how, but the whole world just felt heavy lately, like it was pushing him down into the pavement with every step he took. He was about to say something about being tired and maybe not going when he saw Pat's face.

He didn't know that he'd ever seen her wound up like this, not since that day. She was wringing the hem of her blouse, and her eyes were downcast, but he could still see the tick below her eye. Pat seemed about ready to jitter right through the floor.

Bull set the suit jacket aside and went over and pulled her against his chest, being careful not to disarrange her hair. Pat had clearly taken some time about taming her wild curls into even rows and tucking them all up neat as a pin behind her head. "Don't worry, Pat," he said. "'Spite what Guarnere says, I scrub up all right. It'll be okay."

"No," Pat said, her face pressed against his chest, "it's going to be a disaster. Dad and Johnny can't stand each other."

"I'll try keep him in line," Bull promised, but he didn't have high hopes for that.

At least Johnny had shaved and combed his hair when he came out of the shower. Bull, too, spent a little extra time pomading his hair and giving himself a proper clean shave. He dressed as neat as he could manage, everything ironed and the best made out of a suit that hadn't been new when he'd bought it.

Pat was fussing about how none of her nice dresses fit right any more, while Johnny told her he wouldn't care if she dressed in sackcloth and ashes, and her ma wouldn't either. Pat finally settled on a work skirt and blouse he'd seen her let out recently. It was purple, which she said was the wrong colour for Easter, and Bull saw Johnny visibly bite his tongue. "You look just as pretty as a picture," Bull offered, and got glared at by both of them, but then Pat giggled.

Johnny himself looked sharp as a razor in his navy suit and slate-grey tie and pocket square. He could have passed for one of those fancy bankers or lawyers with no trouble, but what Bull liked best was the way the jacket pinched in at his waist and showed off the strength of his shoulders as they strained against the fabric. Pat sucked her teeth when she saw that, but it was too late to do anything about the added bulk three months on rooftops had put on Johnny's muscles. "See if I can't let it out before the christening," Pat said.

Johnny looked like he wanted to tell her to stop fussing, but also looked like he wanted to live, and let it lie.

At last, they were all standing outside in a fresh spring wind, waiting for Pat's father. Pat had tied a scarf over her hair to try to keep it in place, but the breeze persisted in pulling strands free and swirling them around her face. Bull reached over to smooth them away, then caught himself.

As strange as it seemed now, this was the first time he'd been out in public with Pat, and nearly the first time with Johnny—since the war ended, at least. He was going to have to learn that Pat wasn't his to touch whenever he liked out here. Bull jammed his hands in his pockets, uncaring that it ruined the line of his suit. He'd put so much thought into fretting as to Pat's folks not liking him that he hadn't thought nearly enough about all the details he was going to have to mind.

A black Ford sedan—a pre-war model, but immaculately maintained—pulled up to the curb just as the gusts of wind started to bring rain with them. Johnny circled it to open the front door for Pat.

Bull hesitated. He supposed he ought to just get in, but he waited until Johnny opened the back door on his side before Bull did the same. There wasn't really enough room back there for his legs, but he did his best not to knee the driver in the back. He didn't get much of an impression past a rear view mirror glimpse of eyes as dark as Pat's crowned with greying eyebrows.

"You must be Denver," the man said with the kind of flat accent Bull associated more with Massachusetts than Ohio.

"Yes, sir," Bull said. "Denver Randleman." Though it seemed like Pat's father was going to make his position clear by sticking to Bull's Christian name. At least he wasn't calling Bull "boy," yet.

From the front seat, Pat said, "This is my father, Mr. Robert McConnell."

"Pleased to meet you, sir," Bull said, and thought there was nothing more awkward than being introduced to someone while staring at the back of his head.

Ten minutes later, he decided that standing in someone's parlour and being looked over with a dismissive glance that forbade even trying to hold out his hand was worse. Try as he might, Bull had never gotten used to the Yankee habit of icy disdain, unshrouded in false sweetness. Bull didn't even catch Mrs. Robert McConnell's Christian name. Even Johnny called her "Mrs. McConnell" or "Ma'am" if he was feeling daring.

There was another man there, Mrs. McConnell's younger brother, a bachelor named Mr. Cross that Bull eventually worked out was the same as the Uncle Ronnie Pat worked for. He was somewhere shy of forty, short and heavy set with cheeks pink like he'd been drinking, and the same curly dark hair as Pat and Mrs. McConnell. His suit didn't look as though it'd been thrice mended after having been bought used. He did shake Bull's hand, but otherwise didn't say much.

At least Pat's pregnancy took up much of the attention for the first half hour, where they all stood around and drank tea like they were English, and Bull pretended that he and Johnny didn't stick out like sore thumbs, well, mostly him. Johnny had retreated to Pat's side and was holding her elbow like one of them was about to fall off the couch, and smiling blandly. It wasn't quite the face he put on in front of officers he didn't like—that was a blank stare or a slight scowl, depending—but it felt like a relative of it to Bull. When he spoke at all, his voice lost the rail worker drawl, and tended more to the kind of English Bull imagined they spoke at his university.

Bull just hovered as far away from the centre of attention as he could get while still sitting in the parlour. Mostly, he was blessedly ignored.

When they went into lunch, and Mrs. McConnell bustled into the kitchen to get the first course, Mr. McConnell swung his attention to their new guest. Mr. McConnell was sitting at the head of the table with Pat on his right, Johnny on his left, which put Bull next to Johnny, and Cross by Pat, with Mrs. McConnell at the foot of the table, once she got back. Bull had hoped that would mean that he could just talk to Johnny, or at worst Cross or Mrs. McConnell, but the head of the house seemed to want to command everyone's attention.

"So, Denver," he said, "Pat tells me you work at the C&O Rail yards."

It wasn't really a question, but Bull nodded, and said, "Yes, sir. Night watchman. Just started out." He dithered on mentioning that Johnny had gotten him the job, but in the end decided that he didn't want to seem as though he couldn't find his own employment. The connection would probably be obvious, in any case.

Mr. McConnell asked a few more questions about where Bull had worked before, and why he'd left, and how long he was planning to stay with Johnny and Pat, all of which Bull answered vaguely, leaving out bouncing between states or leaving anywhere in a hurry. He kept his present plans vague, as if he were still making up his mind, and thought he might leave soon.

Pat made a dissatisfied noise and said, "We're actually hoping Denver stays around for a few more months. He's been a lot of help."

Mr. McConnell shot Johnny a questioning glance, asking, it seemed, why Johnny needed someone to help, why he couldn't look after McConnell's daughter on his own. Bull could tell that Johnny would have liked to flat out yell at him, but instead he folded his hands under the table and said, "It's been good having Randleman around. I don't have to worry about Pat being home by herself."

The McConnells exchanged a glance, and Bull saw in their eyes the same light of speculation that had been in Mr. Wislon's at C&O. The problem was they were right, though probably not in the way they thought, but Bull knew trying to act as if he noticed that speculation and thought it was ridiculous would draw more attention than just ignoring the whole thing. He looked across the table at Cross for help. Cross raised an eyebrow, but obliged by asking if Bull and Johnny had served together.

"Yes, sir," Bull said, and could have kissed the man. "I was a squad leader in Johnny's platoon."

"Best one I had," Johnny said, and clapped his hand on the back of Bull's neck. Bull looked down at his plate, and pretended modesty, when all he could feel was relief to have Johnny's hand on him. "You asked Sergeant Randleman to do something, and you didn't have to worry about it after that. Bull got it done."

That got them onto why the nickname, and some of the fit-for-company stories about training. As Mrs. McConnell replaced the dishes, bringing out the main and fixings, Johnny picked a story about supply problems in Austria that was just dull enough that the conversation soon turned to Cross' shipping business, and then the end of rationing.

Bull stayed quiet and focused on the food in front of him. Mrs. McConnell was an excellent cook. "Might be the best ham I've ever had. If you don't mind my asking, ma'am," Bull said next time there was a lull, "what do you put in the glaze?"

Johnny kicked Bull's ankle, and Bull ignored him. It was good ham, though not as good as Ma's, and he wasn't above sucking up if he had to.

She demurred that it was a family secret, then asked, "Do you cook, Denver?"

Bull shrugged. "Not fancy like this, ma'am, but a man living on his own can't always eat at the automat. Starts to get costly."

"Especially when you eat as much as he does," Johnny added, and winced, presumably when Pat kicked him.

"'Specially when you eat as much as I do," Bull agreed placidly.

"Did you live on your own for a long time?" Mrs McConnell asked, some motherly instinct aroused.

Bull wasn't sure if admitting the truth would earn him sympathy, or make him look like a dangerous loner. He went for the real story largely so he didn't have to keep lies straight. "About ten years, ma'am, less my time in the army. They didn't always feed you real good there, but they did feed you."

When Mrs. McConnell sucked her teeth, she sounded exactly like Pat. Before she could ask, Mr. McConnell broke in, asking, "Where are your people, boy?"

"Rector, Arkansas," Bull said, and couldn't look anyone in the eye. "Pa passed when I was knee high, but I got Ma and three little sisters in those parts." And a bunch of cousins there and scattered across the country, though so far as he knew none in Columbus. Ma would have warned him to stay clear of them, were that the case.

Bull thought he'd said his bit pretty well, not showing any of the pain that thinking about Ma and the girls shot through him, but when Mr. McConnell hummed noncommittally, he sounded like Pat when she knew someone was trying to sneak a line past her. Bull couldn't say he liked it much coming from him. "You're not planning to go back?"

"Ain't much there in the way of work," Bull said. "It's why I left."

"Your mother must miss you," Mrs. McConnell said. "Pat's brother, Bobby Junior, he's a lieutenant in the Navy, and he's still stationed out in San Diego, California. We don't see him more than a month a year, and it just breaks my heart."

Bull couldn't help noticing the mention of their son being an officer, and glanced at Johnny, but he didn't seem to mind it. In his more riled up moments, Johnny had a few comments on what he thought it took to be an officer, and Bull didn't expect they'd go over well here, but Johnny kept his peace. "Is he staying in as a career, ma'am?" Bull asked. "Maybe he can see his way to getting posted to the Great Lakes Training Centre. Be a little nearer."

"Not if I have any say in it," Mr. McConnell proclaimed, and Bull wondered if Bobby Junior thought California was just about far enough away. He realised that he didn't actually know what Mr. McConnell did in terms of work, and if there was a family business his son was expected to join, but that wasn't the kind of thing you asked your elder over dinner.

The family seemed to be comfortable, certainly. It was a nice house, a nice car, and the food was not the kind of thing made of pennies scrimped and saved. Bull wondered if they helped Pat out financially at all. That would have to burn Johnny if they did, especially since he didn't seem to have much family to speak of, and what family he did have, he rarely mentioned. Bull had asked Guarnere who'd been at the wedding, and Bill had said it'd mostly been Pat's people.

Cross mentioned that Bobby Junior had served in the Pacific, some kind of small ship that landed troops on all those little islands. It'd sounded like hot work to Bull, and he'd always been glad to have no part in it.

"I wish he'd settle down," Mrs. McConnell said with a sigh. "That poor Miss June Carlisle still thinks he's going to come home and marry her. Do you have a sweetheart, Denver?"

"No, ma'am," Bull said. He turned to look at her so he wouldn't risk looking at Pat. "Guess I haven't found a girl who's willing to put up with me."

Mrs. McConnell tisked. "You sound just like Ronny," she said. "I've been trying to set him up for twenty years, and he never seems to like the girls. They're nice girls, too. He's just fussy."

"I just don't like being set up, Ellie," Cross said amiably, "and I did see that Irish girl, Kathleen, for a couple of months."

Mrs. McConnell sniffed, and from Mr. McConnell's laugh, Bull guessed that Kathleen hadn't been a favourite with his wife. Bull studied Cross more closely than he had before, but couldn't make out anything past a bland expression and an excess of normalcy.

There was a pause while Mrs. McConnell and Pat cleared the table. Johnny talked about how his school was going, but no one other than Bull seemed that interested. Bull felt his face heat. Johnny was trying a little too hard to impress his father-in-law, and it wasn't working. He thought about a well-placed boot to the ankle, but held off for the moment. Maybe the McConnells would at least appreciate how hard Johnny was trying. Cross and Bull exchanged a look, and Bull guessed that wasn't likely.

For the first time, it occurred to Bull to wonder who Johnny was going to school to benefit.

Johnny was only saved by Mrs. McConnell coming back in with little china bowls full of frothy chocolate custard. Bull thought of the lane cake Ma made every Easter she could afford it. He wondered if Pat could maybe learn to make it, or Bull supposed he could, but it probably wouldn't be the same. He took delicate scoops of fluffy chocolate and did his best not to think about how he was never going to taste his mother's cooking again.

"What church do your people go to?" Mrs. McConnell asked, and Bull had a notion that she hadn't quite given up on the idea of setting him up.

"Methodist, mostly, ma'am," Bull said, and before she could follow up by asking where he attended in Columbus, he tried to muddy the waters by saying, "there weren't much in the way of choices back in Rector, and Ma said if a soul had to choose between the Methodists and the Baptists, well…"

"Your mother sounds like a very sensible woman," Mrs. McConnell said, approvingly.

Johnny let out a sigh so faint only Bull could hear it, and Bull didn't know if it was due to Bull winning even that small crumb of approval, or if it was speaking well of Bull's Ma that'd done it.

Either way, Bull just nodded and said, "Yes, ma'am," while focusing his attention on getting the last scrape of chocolate out of the little bowl.

"You're a cigar man, aren't you?" Cross asked when they were done.

"Not in the house!" Mrs. McConnell admonished. "Pipe smoke is bad enough."

Cross smiled and shook his head slightly. "I was about to ask Mr. Randleman if he wanted to partake on the back porch. The sun should just about be around to that side."

Bull didn't really want to let Johnny out of his sight, but he wouldn't mind the air, and if Cross was going to interrogate him, he might as well get it over with. Johnny gave him a narrow look, but Pat smiled encouragingly.

The weather had cleared up, and the porch was as bright and sunny as promised. The small yard smelled of fresh earth after the rain, and everything glistened with rainbow drops of evaporating water. Mrs. McConnell had beds of daffodils along the fence, and they were almost blinding to look at in their brilliance.

Cross' cigars were better quality than Bull could usually afford, and he didn't hesitate to take one. They stood for a moment looking at the flowers, until Cross finally said, "Patty tells me you're new in town."

"That's right," Bull said, wanting to get this over with. "Came down from Michigan. That's where the foundry was, as I mentioned to Mr. McConnell." If he was going to get questioned by every member of Pat's family, separately and together, Bull was glad he hadn't tried lying.

"Why?" It seemed like Cross didn't want to spend longer on Bull than he had to.

"Change of air," Bull said, but considered what Pat might have said, and added, "Lotta reasons, I guess. Wasn't getting along with some family there, neither, and thought I might like to get into a different line of work. Didn't feel like a new start, going back there, after everything." He sucked in a lungful of smoke and hoped that was enough. It was true, in so far as it went, and vague enough to cover the worst of it.

It seemed to be good enough for Cross, anyway. "You settling in all right?"

"Yes, sir," Bull said, wondering where this was headed. "Johnny and Mrs. Martin have been very kind to me."

"Making friends?"

"Not really, sir." Bull studied his cigar, knocking ash off the end. He hadn't even thought of that. Just living day to day felt like more work than his soul could handle a lot of the time. "They don't encourage you to get too friendly with folks in my line of work, and the other watchmen aren't really, well..." They weren't Easy Company.

"I suppose that's true," Cross said, but he was watching Bull like he was a puzzle to be solved. "You know, Ellie probably would set you up with some church girl, if you were looking. She likes matchmaking."

"I ain't really looking at the moment," Bull said. "Or is that advice?"

Cross shrugged. "It doesn't hurt to be seen with a young woman from time to time," he said. "Especially for a young bachelor just back from the war."

Bull wondered if he was just too obvious, or if something Pat had said had tipped Cross off. He thought of that conversation they'd had after their first time together, how she said she'd had a relation who was like him and Johnny, and that's how she knew what they said about queers wasn't entirely true. He had a suspicion now as to who that might be. "I ain't exactly planning on going out and letting my hair down," Bull said cautiously.

Cross caught the double meaning and nodded. "If you ever do plan to, come over and have a word first, all right? Cops are getting bad."

"Kind of you," Bull said, he wanted to ask if he could head over and maybe talk anyway, though he wasn't sure what he'd say. It would just be nice to talk to someone who understood. Johnny was trying, God bless him, but he'd never lived the kind of life Bull had. He would have completely missed that comment about hair, and a hundred other references Bull could have made. But he didn't know Cross well enough to really talk, and it would be next to impossible to do so without breaking his promise of secrecy anyway.

"Is that why you had to leave Michigan?" Cross asked, tone low and sympathetic.

Bull just nodded, not trusting his voice. Even the oblique question let loose a flood of sadness and anger in his chest, something he couldn't put words to now, and might not ever be able to properly talk about.

Cross made a soft, pained sound and patted Bull's shoulder. The kindness from a near stranger, though in some ways a brother, was nearly enough to shake those tears loose inside of Bull, but he blinked them back, nodding again, and hoping that Cross understood how much Bull appreciated his empathy.

They finished their cigars in silence, and by the time they were done, Bull had pulled himself back together.

"Listen," Cross said, catching at Bull's shoulder again as he turned to go in.

He didn't say anything else until Bull stopped and turned to face him, then Bull felt himself looked over again. It felt more like the kind of assessment the McConnell's had given him, rather than an expression of sexual interest, which was a relief. Bull didn't want to have to handle turning Pat's uncle down flat.

"Sir?" Bull asked when Cross still didn't say anything.

Cross shook his head slightly and looked down, smiling to himself. "Firstly, you can call me Ronny, most people do. And, if you ever want to talk, let me know, and I'll take you out for a beer."

"A beer?" Bull said, rocked back by that so hard he had to jam his hands in his pockets to keep from bracing against the rail of the porch. It felt too close to what he'd wanted, earlier, and Bull didn't feel easy about people just handing him things he'd wished for. "Look, I meant what I said before about not wanting to let my hair down."

"Just a beer," Cross said, chuckling. "You aren't all that, son."

"Ha, all right," Bull said, relaxing. "I'll let you know. Thank you."

Cross nodded then tipped his head towards the house, and they went back in.

Bull's eyes immediately found Johnny, who was standing next to Mr. McConnell in the parlour, and making and releasing a fist in that fast, twitchy way he got when he was at the end of his last thread of patience. He was listening to Mr. McConnell, or pretending to, with his hands behind his back, but Bull could see them. Pat was sitting on the couch with her mother, their heads together as they talked low.

"Better go save your friend," Cross said, and Bull nodded and went over to Johnny, hovering at the edge of a conversation about investment banking or some such until Mr McConnell took notice of him.

Bull started to make a little speech about being grateful for the meal, and the hospitality generally, but before he got to the part about how he really needed to head out for work soon, Johnny had broken in to say that Pat was getting tired and they had to go.

They all glanced over at Pat, who looked fine to Bull, but it was a good excuse nonetheless. No man on Earth would challenge that a pregnant woman needed rest. "Of course," Mr. McConnell said, as if he'd known that all along.

Johnny caught Pat's eye, and through some combination of facial expressions conveyed what they were doing. Pat rolled her eyes, but let her mother pull her to her feet.

The ride back to Johnny and Pat's was less tense than the ride over. Bull didn't know if it was the full stomach that made the difference, or the knowledge that, good or ill, the first impression had been made.

"Well, that could have gone worse," Johnny said as they got in the door. Pat just sighed and headed for the bedroom.

"I liked your uncle," Bull offered, wanting something good to come of all that.

"Never could get him to say more than two words to me," Johnny grumbled, but didn't seem put out about Bull's relative popularity with an in-law he didn't care about.

"Uncle Ronny's a dear," Pat said over her shoulder, "and now I need to lie down for a while."

Johnny's eyes ran up her stockinged calves and over her ass. "Yeah, me too, I think."

Bull ran over how much time he had before he had to get changed for work. He figured that'd go faster if he was already naked, at least. "Mind some company?" he asked Johnny, too low for Pat to hear.

"Course we don't," Johnny told him, so Bull followed them into the bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos totally make my day, and I very much appreciate comments of every length, percentage of emoji, and level of coherency.


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